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ABOUT PEOPLE 



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ABOUT PEOPLE 



KATE GANNETT WELLS 







i NOV 20 11884 

BOSTO"" 




JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
I 885 



x- 






Copyright, 1SS4 
Kate Gannnet Wells 

A/l rights reserved 



Rockwell and Churchill y Printers, Boston. 




Two or three of these Essays have pre- 
viously appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, 
and a few pages of the others in various 
periodicals. 





CONTENTS 



Average People . 
Individuality 
Striving .... 
Loyalty and Liberality 
Transitional Woman . 
Personal Influence 
Who's Who . 
Caste in American Society 



9 
35 
69 

95 
123 
149 

173 
199 





AVERAGE PEOPLE 




AVERAGE PEOPLE 



A VERAGE people are the ballast of the 
world. Notwithstanding their usefulness, 
how few people are willing to be ranked as 
average ! How many secretly feel that they 
are beyond the limits of that epithet, and that 
their acquaintances are just below it ! 

Those who think they have escaped the 
boundarjr line, and are to be classed with re- 
markable people, indulge in a perpetual mirage 
of thought, which, to themselves, inverts their 
hulk of commonplaceness into mast-heads of 
prominence. We look at them through their 
self-imposed atmosphere, and believe that they 
are above the water-line ; but the air changes, 



12 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

and the relative proportion of their attributes is 
plainly visible. 

Insignificance is never greater than when it 
thinks it is just above the average. Endeavor- 
ing to avoid its limitations, it wraps itself in the 
restlessness which it supposes is the necessary 
malady of growth. It hugs its imagined head- 
aches and heartaches, and believes that it is per- 
petually suffering from an access of creative 
thought, of original deed, which, always com- 
ing, never appears. Some men and women 
are ever on an uneven race for wealth and am- 
bition ; they are discontented with the restric- 
tions of home and humility ; they speak with 
pathos of their unfulfilled aspirations, of their 
weary, large-eyed gaze at society, of the hol- 
lowness of life, of the solace in " interior 
views," of the comfort in keeping thought- 
diaries, and in interchange of misty quotations 
with deep natures searching for peace and 
truth. They try to do and to be more than 
their mental and physical limitations allow. 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 13 

The women want some loftier mission than 
house-work, the men something more than 
clerkships. So many win the public-school 
diplomas that they are sure they can also suc- 
ceed in the struggle for a profession, or for one 
of the higher avenues of employment. A 
failure is attributed to any other cause rather 
than to mistaken self-estimate. This desire 
for advancement, irrespective of personal qual- 
ifications, is the reason for the increasing 
influx of restlessness among so many persons. 
Within its proper sphere it must always be a 
permanent element of human nature ; but at 
present it is assuming undue proportion, 
owing to the transitional state between 
woman's future definite activities, her possi- 
ble, much-to-be-dreaded publicity, and her 
former quiescence ; and because of the de- 
ductions made by young men from the false 
axiom, that, in this country, every one has a 
chance to be President. Biennial State elec- 
tions or second presidential terms would be 



14 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

calamities to those who take " uppishness" as 
their motto in striving. That restlessness may 
often have a physical basis ; may be fostered 
by temperament, — if so, to be eradicated, — 
or by special individual conditions, — then to be 
conquered, — are but secondary causes for its 
existence. 

Restlessness does not necessarily progress. 
It goes from one side to the other, tossing up 
one set of miseries, and exposing for public 
pity another set of foibles ; it hates others' and 
condones its own short-comings. Education 
and culture are constantly regarded as antidotes 
to restlessness ; and though such only to a cer- 
tain extent, their value is not to be decried ; 
but a restless nature cannot be satisfied with 
study alone. Education must be used as a 
means of enjoyment, not as a stimulus to per- 
sonal ambition, nor as the sole implement for a 
livelihood. If valued for its power of securing 
success, rather than for giving peace and 
strength to the mind, it defeats its purpose, and 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 1 5 

is no longer the blessing it might become. 
Above culture rises the power of character, as 
cure for all the evils that beset us, and as the 
lever inserted under all difficulties. Instead 
of endeavoring to strengthen character by vs^ork 
for others, often unpaid, some seek to curb 
their discontent and want of self-poise by start- 
ing new schemes for the sake of novelty or 
personal ambition. Others strive for the same 
result by an endless pursuit of lectures, and 
many by a diletta7tte culture, when real inter- 
est in study is wanting. They aim too high in 
the beginning of their effort at self-improve- 
ment ; enjoyment is a test of capacity, and 
capacity is increased by enjoyment. Religious 
faith or "ethical" trust can alone cure the 
restlessness which seeks its quietus in educa- 
tion and culture. Its evil is heightened by this 
endeavor to overstep limitations that cannot be 
passed without injury to one's self or one's 
duties. The debating societies of men are fre- 
quently opportunities for self-display, and the 



1 6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

history and literature classes of women but an 
excuse for spending a morning elsewhere than 
at home. The culture thus sought comes from 
books alone, when the mood of mind or weari- 
ness of body makes it impossible to enjoy them 
except for the grim satisfaction that is found in 
doing for one's self. 

Restless people often seek to rise by adven- 
titious means ; they use others' kindnesses 
and throw them away when a fresh social step- 
ping-stone has been reached ; they snub those 
below and fawn on those above them ; they 
appropriate others' stories, and live on capital 
stolen or borrowed, no thought of interest on 
personal obligations ever occurring to them. 
Such conduct is more contemptible, but not so 
wearisome to aquaintances as uneasy intro- 
spection, using one's self as a claimant for 
sympathy. 

The homes of those who think they are 
above the average, because in their search for 
distinction or a great soul they are devoured 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 1 7 

with restlessness, are decorated with cheap 
textiles of old-gold shades and ancestral dis- 
colorations ; books are laid over literary ink- 
spots on the table-scarf (not table-cloth) ; 
chairs, purposely placed carelessly, are always 
in the way. Men wear oppressive sleeve-but- 
tons ; women divide their hair on the shadow 
of a diagonal and adopt sestheticism in dress, 
because it hides economy under the pretence 
of a cultured soul. 

Their speech is strewn with niceties " of 
grammar and pronunciations which are pain- 
fully correct ; acute accents are placed on sylla- 
bles, and e7z is added to the participle got* 
They never use a slang term which would 
avoid the use of circumlocution ; they choose 
their substantives and adjectives from Latin, 
rather than Saxon roots. They talk of psy- 
chological conditions, and use physiological 
terms with surprising familiarity. There is no 
humbug so easily penetrated as that of the 
striving to be above the level of humanity. 



1 8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

Those who are below it are rough and 
coarse, honest or not, as the case may be ; but 
ever a terror. They are self-opinionated, care- 
less in dress, words, and manner, because they 
do not wish to be otherwise. Want of per- 
sonal refinement, absence of humor, jealousy, 
or indifference, mark them. 

Average people, our needed commonplace 
friends, are the mean in the social relations of 
life between the two extremes of our ideals 
and realizations. They are constituted either 
as the average man or the average gentleman 
and the average woman or the average lady. 
So much conventionality has clung, in the past, 
to the word lady that the term woman was 
later employed, as indicating a being more 
nobly planned than its circumscribed and 
partial synonyme. But now no gentlewoman 
is content unless she is also called a lady, for 
the word woman has come to represent such 
intensified shortness in skirts, thickness in 
boots, such repulsive good sense and plainness 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 19 

of speech, such self-asserting, executive ability 
and dominant purpose, that in rebounding 
from this type of femineity, we would almost 
rather accept the sentimental heroines of the 
novels of a past age. The obloquy of being 
only a woman was ludicrously shown by the 
misnomer with which a real lady unconsciously 
spoke of A. S. Hardy's story, "But yet a 
Woman." " Not yet a lady," she rightly 
termed it. The tone in which society utters, 
" She is no lady," indicates so final a settle- 
ment of the matter that there is no opportunity 
for controversy. The fiat has gone forth as 
that of predestination, and there Is no use in 
struggling against the mandate. 

Man and gentleman have not inverted their 
significance to such an extent as their feminine 
correlatives. The exceptional gentleman in- 
cludes the man, but to be a man does not 
compel one to be a gentleman ; — and we say 
manhood suffi'age ! If we possess the blessed- 
ness of average excellence, the exceptional 



20 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

can easily be left aloft in its shining isola- 
tion. 

The average man or woman understands 
arithmetic, spells correctly from memory 
rather than by intuition, is industrious, cor- 
dial, shakes hands heartily, is good-hu- 
mored, sensible, moderate, free from preju- 
dice, helpful, sometimes aggressive, generally 
unconscious. 

The average gentleman or lady knows 
languages, writes an English hand, fulfils all 
needful demands, but does not work from real 
love of occupation, is well-bred, quotes bright 
and applicable sayings, is even-tempered, has 
honest prejudices, hides haste under a forced 
slowness, helps where there is no fear of 
being considered intrusive, lays the hand in 
another's palm as greeting, smiles serenely, 
laughs softly, and is self-contented, instead of 
self-conscious. Rarely does either the average 
gentleman or lady become the exceptional, 
for they are radically " helplessly bornee." 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 21 

On the other hand, average men or 
women have such a real simphcity of pur- 
pose that in evolution they skip the abortive 
growth of the average gentleman or lady 
and pass into exceptional gentlemen or ladies, 
who are not cast down at a mispronunciation, 
for the soul that is behind makes the tones 
of voice hit like hot shot on each emphatic 
word ; and the handwriting bears a stamp of 
individuality which leaves the chance mis- 
spelling unnoticed. In such persons we are 
unaware of their motion, whether it is that 
of speed or slowness we know not, only that 
they are always coming to welcome us as 
equals. We are ignorant of their personal or 
mental habits : the books they read, the soap 
or brushes they use, the clothes they wear ; to 
be conspicuously neat and well-informed is 
but little less disagreeable than to be unneat or 
uncultured. They are far above customs, 
peculiarities ; their methods are only known by 
results. Knowledge is their servant, not the 



22 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

cicerone of their requirements, for each one 
stands as a whole, not as a collection of points 
with intervening spaces. Their conversation 
does not consist of Social items or of literary 
gossip. Their ready cordiality, sympathy, 
grace, and proportion mark their outward 
presentment. We know them best by know- 
ing that we ourselves are never so brilliant, so 
learned, or so happy as when with them. 
The reality in them is the substratum of the 
average man or woman, which can be re- 
fined by the furnace of life-experience into 
the purest human ore ; and which makes him 
of humble appreciation able to cope with the 
man of scholarship. No conversation is so 
rich as that which caps the litterateur' s and 
critic's reference with some bit of present, 
human fact. 

It is this reality which makes average peo- 
ple so needful. As a rule they have not 
self-consciousness, — that venerable inheritance 
from American and English ancestry, — set 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 23 

round with religious tenets, which prevents 
our ease and our hospitalities, stifles our loud 
laughter, and generates the well-bred smile, 
makes us dread our enthusiasms and our heart 
friendships, repels us from superior and infe- 
rior, and keeps us on the look-out for snubs. 
They do not aim at special knowledge, nor 
take positions requiring it. They acquire 
book-knowledge from simple enjoyment of it 
rather than from a desire to know more than 
others. Culture pursued for selfish ends misses 
its beneficent power. Aspiration keeps its 
ideals, but wisdom recognizes that the grasping 
of them is not within the reach of all ; so aver- 
age people may have had dreams of possible 
future usefulness or attainment, but have become 
content to be nobodies with slight stock of 
general information. They take up the daily 
routine of daily duties, thankful that there 
is much in quantity to do, living to help 
others, and trusting that, when old age comes, 
serenity of mind will atone for the lack of high 



24 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

intelligence. They are guardians of their char- 
acter, abiding within their limitations, hard as 
it is to do so, and happy because needful to 
the spot in which they are placed. They 
create a home for others, not for themselves 
alone, sheltering others in the wide sense of 
caring for and helping them, often bringing 
them within their own four walls. One must 
make one's self, not one's house alone, into a 
home. This is done by hundreds who live in 
boarding-houses, whose affection is so large 
that it hides the smallness of their room. 
Above all, average persons have a large moral 
sense, and are apt to judge of use, power and 
beauty, of story and poem, by their moral ef- 
fects. They involuntarily adopt means to ends 
as a principle of economic force ; their sense 
of harmony expresses itself by their choice 
of whatever will best accomplish their pur- 
pose. They even are religious ; their trust 
in a higher power, which they do or do not 
try to bring within the bounds of personality, 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 25 

gives them calmness and self-poise. They 
take duty as the substance of existence, gladly 
accepting whatever joy comes as its lustre 
and letting life find its justification in growth. 
" Home-keeping hearts are happiest." 
Average people make our homes, the homes 
with the sitting-rooms, which represent the 
common life of humanity. Let us keep the 
good old word, for we must sit as individuals, 
as families, and as nations, in order to rest, 
and wait, and pause, and think. There are 
the mothers who bake and mend, and are 
glad because husbands like pies and children 
love to romp. There are the fathers who 
quietly work all day that their boy may go to 
college ; who have a common purse with their 
wife, and call her " mother," as tribute, un- 
awares, to her blessed maternity which has 
beautified the home, and who, when death 
has led their life-long companion to another 
dwelling-place, quickly follow her, as they 
know not what else to do. It is the life 



26 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

of these average people that is described by 
William C. Gannett in his poem 



IN TWOS. 

Somewhere in the world there hide 
Garden-gates that no one sees, 

Save they come in happy t-wos, — 
Not in ones, nor yet in threes. 

But from every maiden's door 

Leads a pathway straight and true; 

Maps and surveys know it not; 

He who finds, finds room for two ! 

Then they see the garden-gates! 

Never skies so blue as theirs! 
Never flowers so many-sweet 

As for those who come in pairs. 

Round and round the alleys wind : 
Now a cradle bars their way, 

Now a little mound, behind, — 
So the two go through the day. 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 27 

When no nook in all the lanes 

But has heard a song or sigh, 
Lo ! another garden-gate 

Opens as the two go by! 

In they wander, knowing not; 

" Five and Twenty ! " fills the air 
With a silvery echo low. 

All about the startled pair. 

Happier yet these garden-walks: 
Closer, heart to heart, they lean; 

Stiller, softer falls the light; 
Few the twos, and far between. 

Till, at last, as on they pass 

Down the paths so well they know. 

Once again at hidden gates 

Stand the two : they enter slow. 

Golden Gates of Fifty Years, 

May our two your latchet press! 

Garden of the Sunset Land, 
Hold their dearest happiness ! 



28 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

Then a quiet walk again: 

Then a wicket in the wall : 
Then one, stepping on alone, — 

Then two at the Heart of All ! 

In this average home there is the sister who 
washes and stiffens her one silk that the 
brother may have another suit ; who turns his 
cravats, and for his sake invites all the girls ; 
and there is the brother who is a better friend 
than beau, and who will not, even in his day- 
dreams, think of her whom he wants to marry, 
that he may longer support the aging father 
and mother. Oh, it is the dear, blessed, aver- 
age people whose names echo through our 
prayers, who make each economy a loving 
grace, each well-worn joke a blossom of good- 
will ! 

Or, if wealth has lightened daily cares, it is 
still the average mother who lovingly takes in- 
visible darns in the merino sock which a new 
one could easily replace ; who changes the 
brilliant chromo for Correggio's angels, and 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 29 

who gives the good-night kiss at each bedside. 
It is still the average father w^ho bids his boy 
place emphasis on Jio7ior and ttse^ instead of 
on popularity or high mark at examinations ; 
and who demands rectitude and purity in the 
husbands of his girls. It is the average people 
who keep the churches even half-full, and the 
country from being only on the verge of ruin. 
It is their sturdy common-sense, independence 
through force of character, which makes them, 
unmindful of homage when offered to them- 
selves, render it wherever it is due ; their 
humble dignity, yet demanding payment of 
the every-day respect that belongs to each 
honest soul. 

Some persons pass through the ordeal of 
finding that aspiration can never become 
achievement without pain. Others hide their 
suffering in obedience to duty, and know the 
cramping chills that come from never being 
more than one is. They see women loved 
with a passion which they can never inspire, 



30 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

and they know that any utterance of what they 
feel would lose its power through their awk- 
wardness. They see men reverenced for that 
at which they thrill but can never describe. 
They are always missing, always trying ; trem- 
bling with the harmonies of nature, they are 
dumb before their own formless selves. They 
know that beauty finds ill expression of itself 
through them ; that their tame and ordinary 
words tell of affection w^hich is never radiant ; 
of feeling which never prophesies, and of ap- 
preciation which is never equality ; for they are 
always conscious of the bitter refrain, — aver- 
age, average. But above it rise the solemn 
chords of patient resolve, quieting their hope- 
lessness. Duty remains for them, and, as the 
thought sings itself into the little moods of sad- 
ness, their moan ceases, and, while gazing 
afar off' and fondly at the great and pleasant 
of earth, they seek only those whom they can 
help by their small attempts at making things 
pleasant. They take, gently, the ignoring of 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 31 

themselves, crush their half-shaped, might- 
have-been-bright answers, utter the remem- 
bered commonplaces, and do the little kind- 
nesses, and are true to their circumscribed 
sphere of duty. These are the heroes of aver- 
age life, the brave men and women who talk 
of the weather, and children, and business, and 
read the papers, and train themselves to sup- 
pression of all vague, beautiful dreams of self- 
possibilities. Grinding their souls into peace 
by repetition of their futilities at home, at 
school, and in society, by the time they are 
twenty-five or thirty years of age they have 
forgotten that there is aught but duty, except 
for the spasms that come as some poem or grand 
burst of music wakens again the struggle, — 
never a jealous one, only bitter, and always 
conquered by humility and duty, — gentle, in- 
flexible, solacing duty. 

In spite of this pain that comes to some, 
contentment and sense of responsibility are the 
prominent cliaracteristics of average people ; 



32 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

contentment with circumstances going hand 
in hand with acknowledgment of varying 
heights of mental stature, which humbly per- 
ceives that to-day's highest result may be to- 
morrow's future mediocrity. Contentment 
may have had to learn its lesson, temperament 
may have aided it, but once learned, the 
task has not been forgotten. Tempera- 
ment is fraught with responsibility, not devoid 
of it; evil issues are to be shunned, beneficial 
ones to be deepened. The more of gifts we 
have, or the more of ease in acquiring them, 
the less depression weighs upon us ; the 
stronger will we possess, the more do we owe 
to others. Self-regeneration can never be 
effected by dependence on temperament as 
excuse. The healthy-mindedness of average 
people transforms the fancied force of tempera- 
ment into the actual force of character. This 
feeling of responsibility recognizes that con- 
tentment is a personal attribute ; that yet one 
can do little by himself; that the world de- 



AVERAGE PEOPLE. 33 

mands utility as reason for daring to exist, and 
that, therefore, average people must justify 
themselves by organization if they are bent 
on accomplishment of work in any large 
direction. 

Professor Price, the political economist, 
asked his class of English students, and, later, 
the New York Board of Trade, to define the 
difference between men and animals ; but it 
was a woman who replied, " Progressive 
desire." Her excelsior was a constant, defi- 
nite improvement, which necessitates Order ; 
that is but a name for Organization, and that 
again is but the watchword of Progress. All 
must fall into line and pass on the word, or 
else be court-martialled. Time does not wait 
to gratify individual whims. The world's 
welfare depends on us only as we add our 
tiny personal strength to that of concerted 
action. Ordinary ardor, forethought, and im- 
agination weld all the possibilities of service 
and being into action, which will employ its 



34 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

strength, not in endeavoring to arrange human 
society according to the latest invention pat- 
ented by the latest philanthropist, but by trying 
to do whatever duty lies nearest, v^^hile waiting 
for the glory of the heavens to solve its puzzles 
and fill the soul with abiding convictions. 
Such effort takes in silence the very humblest 
sei*vices that the universe puts within its frail 
hands, and finds, — it may be happiness, it is 
contentment, in fulfilling responsibility and 
duty, which lead to the happy freedom of being 
an average person. 




INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME AND 
SOCIETY 



^^1^ 




INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME AND 
SOCIETY. 



'T^HE reconciliation of individuality with 
-*■ the rights of others is one of life's prob- 
lems. Its solution is constantly baffling us, 
yet it must be found, if our relations to home 
and society are to be adjusted on any equable 
division of mutual privileges. As Americans, 
we are prone to stand up for our rights, and 
take it for granted that everything should tend 
to our advancement ; therefore, when we meet 
some one who cherishes similar ideas con- 
cerning his prerogatives, friction ensues. 
Whether the striking together shall bring 
success to each or end in destruction of 



38 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

one depends upon the adjustment of mutual 
claims. 

Individuality in its nobler form is more than 
mere assertion of one's rights, — it becomes the 
maintenance of a principle. For that one 
works, contends, endures, dies. Often from 
conscious or unconscious obstinacy, or from 
self-love, sometimes from real absorption in a 
cause v^ithout regard to self, is the individuality 
merged in what one wishes to accomplish. 
Napoleon, Palissy, Fulton, Carlyle, Emer- 
son, an anti-tobacconist or a pro-suffragist, are 
all alike instances of individuality. Without 
it one cannot think of a reformer, or of a 
leader in politics, charities, or social life. 
That it is often disguised may but intensify its 
power, for individuality may or may not be 
marked by self-control and tact. Just so far as 
it possesses such virtues, does it lead to power. 
It can be either angular or curved. When the 
former, we gain Simeon Stylites, monks of La 
Trappe, fanatics, persecutors, disagreeable 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 39 

friends ; when curved, we gain our Philip Sid- 
ney, our Abraham Lincoln, our wise philan- 
thropists, our calm enthusiasts, our guides and 
inspirers. It is intensity of feeling that can 
either be hidden or must find utterance of itself, 
and thus, in either case, it becomes the national 
expression of characteristics. It cannot be 
easily defined, because it is the " make up,*' — 
the whole of each one ; it is the atmosphere that 
surrounds his moral, mental, and bodily quali- 
ties. It is both a derived and educated force. 
Whether it shall be our blessing or our curse 
depends upon the amount of righteous will- 
power exercised. Without It we lack the 
beauty of distinctiveness and the force of ac- 
tion ; yet the want of recognition of each other's 
individuality is the efficient cause of many a 
discordant home and confused social action. 

Each generation, as it is born, lives, and 
passes away, talks of individuality as if it were 
the product of itself alone, — a wonder only then 
to be beheld ; regarding it as a distinct fact in 



40 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

man and a more easily recognized concept of 
thouglit, than the myriad beauty and separate- 
ness of leaf and stone, of cloud and snow-flake, 
the individuality of and in nature. 

Somehow we all like to be called individual, 
if the word is applied as an adjective ; the 
epithet original our modesty refuses, while to 
be told that we have idiosyncrasies or peculiar- 
ities excites our silent or outspoken ire. The 
frank information that the complexion is bad, 
tones of voice and manners annoying, is most 
disagreeable ; but to be regarded as individual 
places us on a height from which we serenely 
take note of others' peculiarities. Individ- 
uality, idiosyncrasy, peculiarity, — they are 
the three terms in which our distinctiveness is 
rated, yet each falls short of the force of the 
word genius. We are right, however, in liking 
to be considered individual, for it is a recogni- 
tion that we have striven for something ; it is 
better to be on the heights — if noble heights — 
than on the plains. For something, that is 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 41 

the point. Who can tell whether it is a good 
or bad something ? 

The consensus of the competent is needed as 
judge of the right ; but the hour may come 
when one alone is competent. Then the mul- 
titude stand aloof and gaze. Only when the 
voice of the wise is as the sound of many 
waters do the people praise. An individual 
who is such for the sake of growth, and not 
from aggressiveness or a liking for peculiarity, 
feels the sting in everything that separates him 
from his fellows ; it is painful work to be alone, 
yet to be alone with one's truth often means 
living farther from men and nearer to God, and 
what begins as an act of self-protection becomes 
the religious deed and communion with the 
Most High. As we swing ourselves on to the 
heights we must often feel the pain that comes 
to us through the self-complacency of others, 
who misunderstand our simple longing to be 
true, our unconsciousness is disturbed, and we 
analyze our motives till afraid of ourselves. 



42 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

Self-inflicted torture should always bring, at 
last, clearer vision and thankfulness for release 
from self. 

Long before individuality has attained such 
lustre that it becomes an attractive rather than 
a repellent force does it manifest itself in the 
early stages of home-life. The entreaty to the 
child to amuse himself, or to take care of him- 
self, is the first open declaration of the rights of 
the parent against those of the child. Infantile 
graces and motherly love quickly adjust any 
difference of opinion ; but, as years increase, 
the child finds himself under the shelter of law 
(ineffective it often is) which guarantees his 
right to a certain amount of physical and 
mental growth before he is used as a means of 
support for the family. The laboring classes 
chiefly reap the benefit of these laws, but in 
other ways than earning, for which necessity 
is often the justification, do the rights of parent 
and older child conflict. The school brings 
the difficulty. School-hours, home-lessons, 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 43 

music, drawing, dancing, sleeping, dressing, 
eating, leave literally no time for the girl's 
mending or the boy's carpentering jobs about 
the house. The dining-table is almost the 
only place where meets a modern family bent 
on modern education. The theatre, the winter 
dance, and the summer hotel, rather than the 
home, furnish recreation and rest, and cause 
the little sympathy that too often exists between 
children and their parents, who are spoken of 
as old or nervous. We calmly allow this- re- 
sult to be reached, feeling that the child's in- 
dividuality has demanded it ; that it is right to 
allow him to be snobbish, snubbish, and patron- 
izing to commonplace friends and parents ; to 
be cross, nervous, dyspeptic, because he must 
have time for study. It is far better to main- 
tain him a year longer in school, as an offset 
to the minutes consumed in doing family 
errands, than to allow him to evade them. 
Notwithstanding, the child is right in feeling 
that his school is of the utmost importance, 



44 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

with which family-life should interfere as little 
as possible, and parents must submit to per- 
sonal losses in convenience and enjoyment 
because of the " schooling." The study 
gained, the adult child has a right to decide for 
himself on his future occupation, unhampered 
by aught but parental advice. How often it is 
said : " I should have been an engineer, 
lawyer, mechanic, if my father had not wished 
me to do otherwise." Far wiser that the 
young man should struggle longer in the pur- 
suit for self-support than bear all through life 
the burden of wishing he had been something 
else, because there seemed need of immediate 
decision, either from pecuniary reasons or re- 
gard for his father's wishes. 

That parent makes a fortunate discovery 
who early sees that, while it is her duty to 
train the child as a child, to admonish 
and punish, 3^et that, as the years go by, her 
duties as direct guide lessen, and life-experi- 
ence becomes the greater teacher. It is often 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 45 

said that grown-up families cannot live to- 
gether, because of the want of this recognition 
of each other's individuality. The home 
which unites many varying interests, in which 
each feels that his or her peculiar hobby meets 
with consideration and fairness, is the home 
that is richest in intellectual wealth and 
affection, — the home which broadens others, 
into which it is a liberal education to enter, — 
the home that makes cooperation possible. 

But parents do not show that unbiassed 
judgment of their children's divergence from 
them which they manifest in regard to strangers. 
The adult son or daughter feels that his or her 
measure of difference is a source of poignant 
regret. That there must be regret is natural, 
but that the adult child should always be un- 
comfortable, under the added force of keen 
bitterness in his father's feeling, hampers his 
own harmonious growth ; — he grows, but with 
a sense of doing injury to those he loves best. 

The legal and friendly aspects and advan- 



46 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

tages of the relation between parents and 
children have often been obstructed by a semi- 
religious sentiment. The parent's obligation 
to the child is far greater than that of the child 
to the parent ; parental disregard of the child's 
individualism springing often from his feeling 
that the child is a direct gift to him from God, 
and that responsibility is lessened in proportion 
to unconscious exercise of any duty or capacity. 
God is the great law-maker, but the execution 
of his human laws he leaves to man, whose 
responsibility of giving to each child the op- 
portunity for full development is thereby 
increased a thousand-fold. To the child who 
never asked to be born, should a wise, free 
growth be allowed just as long as the parent 
lives. What right has one to bring an individ- 
ual soul into the world and then through 
affection needlessly curb it? The child's 
obedience used to be demanded on the ground 
of authority involved in the relationship of 
birth ; now it is demanded on the ground of 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 47 

affection, and in this way the full, free nature of 
affection is lessened. Never ask another to fulfil 
a duty for love's sake, but for the sake of right. 
Love is broad, but right glorifies it, and in every 
act of affection there should be a foundation 
of right. Parents and children, brothers and 
sisters, and friends, should never appeal to each 
other to remit any of the individuality of each 
vv^ith the v^ords, " for my sake." Give it up 
if it is right ; retain it if it is right. There are, 
hov^ever, questions of expediency v^hich often 
must be settled for the young by an appeal to 
their affection. Only by development of 
the moral and intellectual nature, of mechani- 
cal skill and of religious trust, can all sides of 
the individual be rounded into that graceful 
freedom of action which leaves to others as 
much space as it demands for itself. 

In a family, the grown-up sons and daugh- 
ters who possess strong individualism do not 
always have the opportunity to learn through 
their own experience. The very breakfast 



48 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

loses its flavor if the same freedom is not 
allowed to sons in discussion of the morning's 
politics which the father claims for himself. 
After the day's toil, if the young man prefers 
the solitude of his own room to the inconse- 
quent hum of the parlor, his mother sighs ; if 
friends are with him, his sister wishes they 
would remain in the drawing-room. Often a 
daughter in her 'father's house cannot call 
anything absolutely her own. Her time is 
for others. Money ! Her father may give 
her hundreds of dollars as spasmodic gifts, 
and nothing as an allowance. She may have 
permission to buy an oil-painting when her 
heart yearns for a water-color. She can have 
credit at certain establishments, but she has 
not $5.00 cash in her pocket wherewith to 
buy an ice-cream, a ribbon, or a book. She 
asks for money for the contribution-box and 
is told that her father will attend to the family 
alms-giving. She must invite guests rather than 
be invited, as her parents like her presence at 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME, 49 

the daily meals. She may study art, but must 
not go to a life school. Education has been 
bestowed, but, when she wishes to use it in 
spheres apart from the home, her parents are 
unwilling. Affection is the restraining power 
by which the actions, charities, and occupa- 
tions of the adult child are limited. The 
father would be none the less venerated if 
no direct appeal was made to him for each 
necessity of life ; nor would the desire for 
self-support torment so many if each daugh- 
ter had a certain part of the family income. 
Then her gifts, her charities, her personal 
expenses, and her self-denials, would be meas- 
ured one against the other, and each act would 
be her own. 

Yet it is from affection, from the pride of 
support, from the joy of giving, from the 
pleasure in feeling, that the father, as parent 
and householder, has created his home, that 
he misses, unconsciously, the balance of pro- 
portion between his own individuality and that 



50 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

of his children. Nor is it only his adult 
children who are thus repressed. The same 
generosity leads him to prefer gifts of money 
to his wife, rather than a balancing of 
accounts which credits her with so much 
due for her exertions in the household. Does 
he, moreover, always feel that some of the 
day belongs to her as much as his evening 
hours belong to him? Somewhere or other 
crop out his rights as an individual, which 
the wife should zealously guard ; but are hers 
guarded as much in return? Unless a wife 
is considered to have as absolute a right to her 
individuality as the husband has to his, mar- 
riage can never be the beneficent institution 
for which some people consider it was de- 
signed. The same love that would protect 
in health, and that would watch anxiously in 
case of life and death, will be silent or cross 
when home cares and perplexities weary. It 
is the little rights of each other which we 
ignore. 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 5 1 

Again, as want of deference to others' indi- 
vidualities are the silent looks, the long gaps in 
conversation, the taking up one's hat and dis- 
appearing on the part of men, and the sudden 
absorption in mending, children, or books on 
the part of women, — all from want of respect 
for each other's characteristics, which it is only- 
courteous to recognize as the right of each 
individual. Silences only deepen individuali- 
ties that are on the wrong side of a subject. 
Frank, generous conversation, with ability to 
be just as pleasant the next moment as if differ- 
ence of opinion had not been expressed, helps 
each to see his or her mistakes, to understand 
whether he or she is acting from love of ambi- 
tion, from obstinacy, or for truth's sake. 
Homes must learn the impersonal art of discus- 
sion, which makes the intellect grow, and 
leaves love and belief in other's sincerity un- 
touched. The stronger are we, the more do 
we feel the force of the French proverb, " no- 
blesse oblige;''' not that the person is aware he 



52 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

belongs to the noblesse,, the world's greatest 
arid noblest, through the insignia of character ; 
but because, being unconsciously noble and 
great, he cannot help being tender to others ; 
strength makes tenderness. 

Another phase of the rights of individuality 
among members of the same household 
relates to questions of religious belief. The 
parent is bound to mould his child into the 
parent's highest ideal while it is very young ; 
but, also, must he soon begin to lay before it 
the fact that men as conscientious or as wise 
as himself think differently. It may puzzle 
the child ; but unconsciously will it be the 
foundation of his later liberality in judging of 
mankind. The parent's emphasis can always 
indicate that his conviction of truth is the only 
one his intellectual honesty justifies him in 
holding. Thus the abstract law of the relativ- 
ity of truth, and its positive, personal applica- 
tion to the individual, are both maintained. 
While the child is young he expresses his rela- 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 53 

tion to the family by going to the family 
church. Perhaps it is his first lesson in learn- 
ing that individualism, within certain limits, 
can express itself within an organization, and 
that organization and cooperation are the 
fulcrums of humanity. 

But when the child, as adult, has thought 
and arrived at different conclusions from his 
parent, the latter should place no fetters of re- 
straint or affection upon his will. The consti- 
tutional tendencies of varying minds will carry 
them to various denominations. The conserva- 
tive and the radical cannot consort in their 
underlying views of philosophy. The High 
or Catholic Church must exist for those who 
lean on authority ; the Broad Church for those 
who are independent ; Radicalism for those 
who are willing to follow thought to its more 
ultimate conclusions ; oddities in church organi- 
zation for those who must invent a sect for 
their own personality. Homoeopathy and mys- 
ticism are akin, as are allopathy and ration- 



54 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

alism. Loyalty to truth must compel one to 
worship where he shall find emphasis laid 
upon his essentials. But the individuality 
that goes through several creeds, proclaiming 
each alike, should wait until assured beyond 
recall that it has reached its final truth. Not 
the sprouting, but the full blossoming, mind 
becomes the willingly recognized leader. The 
sprouts of growth often prove abortive. In- 
tense individuality, which makes one search 
for truth, keeps one from rendering apparent 
homage to another's truth on the plea that 
religion is only a matter of life, rather than 
of intellectual opinion. A doctrine in the long 
changing of human interests is a greater force 
than a man, and one's individuality and one's 
reason must be very slight if loyalty to ideas 
can be subserved to the personal gratification 
of self-improvement, supposed to be effected 
by regular attendance on a service whose 
creed is disbelieved. The line of difference 
should always be drawn at the farthest point ; 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 55 

all possibilities of convergence should be 
accepted, and individuality should surround 
itself with an atmosphere of deference for every 
form of thought, and of reverence for every 
noble deed. 

In spheres apart from home or church life is 
the want of individuality felt in its more hu- 
morous aspects, though its lack may be as 
harmful as elsewhere. One of the chief char- 
acteristics of modern society is its sameness. 
The groups may be different, but the people in 
each group are outwardly similar ; not only, on 
the whole, do we dress alike, but we eat and 
live alike. If our neighbor has moved into a 
Qiieen Anne house, we must have at least a 
room furnished in Queen Anne style ; men 
wear black dress-coats ; women, soft- toned 
hues ; our embroidery is in olive crewels ; and 
we eat oysters everywhere, because it is so 
much safer to imitate than to originate. Most 
of us have no original capacity. We admire 
or praise gregariously. We are like a flock 



56 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

of sheep, and not always does the first sheep 
jump the right fence. We are cowards, and 
neither praise nor blame independently. A 
little reading-club was studying a certain 
poem, and one of its members said, " I think 
it is awfully stupid ! " Then went round the 
whisper, " Isn't she bright, funny?" If each 
had dared to say her own thought, it would 
have been just what this lady said ; and the 
universal fun would have been denominated 
common-sense. There is affectation in eu- 
phuistic words and simpering tones which 
sometimes passes muster for a while, but only 
to cover the person with final disgrace. The 
literary criticism of a magazine or newspaper 
column shows whether the writer is stamped 
with an irrepressible individuality that puts 
itself into w^hat he writes, or whether he is 
fearful, and praises gently all alike. 

It is very hard to maintain a graceful but 
true individuality under the soft pressure of 
society and frightened friends ; but, if the 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 57 

world is to be any better for our living in it, 
it will only be so in proportion to our distinct- 
ness of thought, style, and mode of expression. 
Then society becomes rich and brilliant ; the 
bon-mots of the dinner-table whet the appetite, 
and the opinions of the evening coterie become 
laws for those who have no time, or are too 
lazy to think. There must, however, be a 
force that shall prevent our individuality from 
too speedy expression of itself, or from inter- 
fering with the rights of another, or prevent- 
ing his expression of himself. Conventionality 
is the rightful restraint upon individuality, the 
heavy armor of what has been, not the elastic 
armor of what one likes ; but, as with 
any other coat of mail, it should not be 
thrown off until the wearer is able to exist 
unguarded. The laws of custom are scab- 
bards that sheathe the cutting weapon. 

Nothing should grow more slowly than in- 
dividuality, or have its steel more finely tem- 
pered. An individuality of crude opinion or 



5^ ABOUT PEOPLE. 

of words is not the material which moves the 
ages. Conscientiousness should guide its 
growth, self-sacrifice illumine its path, and 
love of beauty moderate its pace. Fanatics, 
reformers, constantly injure their work by in- 
sistence on the rights of their own sacred cause, 
without regard to the conventions and amen- 
ities of life. The reforms of a century hence 
will not be accomplished in the despotic man- 
ner in which many have been, and still are, 
carried on. The liberal leagues, the temper- 
ance cause, and many religious movements, 
are sullied by the intensity with which one 
would put his right into some one's else 
being. Many a society is started to carry out 
some special individuality, which by honest 
meditation and compromise could have been 
incorporated with some already existing in- 
stitution, and thus have been saved the device 
of a new name and the expense of a new set 
of officers, etc. The organized individualism 
often succeeds, but oftener is short-lived. 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 59 

How careful ought one, then, to be in form- 
ing new plans, lest they become a cause of 
social stoppage or discord ! 

All men and women should feel that in 
some manner or other they are bound to stand 
for some truth or deed ; that in some way they 
help humanity ; that they are always to live 
on the noblest heights of life, with puipose 
ever in view. It may be a general or a special 
purpose ; but there must be some one motive 
besides the indefinite desire for indefinite 
goodness, which shall shape out an individu- 
ality. Only those men and women whose 
life-work is clear before them can afford to 
lay it by, as the side duties of life spring up 
for immediate attention. An intense purpose 
waits its fulfilment, and, in waiting and ripen- 
ing, nourishes all the little seeds of endeavor, 
and refreshes the waste places in others' lives. 
There cannot be individuality without inten- 
sity of feeling or conviction. Our modern life 
demands such a complexity of interests and 



6o ABOUT PEOPLE. 

such a generality of knowledge that the mass 
of people, the non-active reformers, forget to 
care for one subject more than another, and so 
become just like everybody else. Half of 
originality is simply daring to be true, simply 
saying just what one thinks, but in a pleasant 
way. "He said just what I thought" is the 
frequent reflexion made on bright people, who 
were no brighter than the listener, but who 
were truer and less self-conscious. Obituaries, 
resolutions of societies on valuable deceased 
members, and eulogies on the living, have all 
the same flavor, as if every one were a twin. 

Although meek acceptance and repetition 
of opinion can be tolerated in an evening 
party, it becomes intolerable in committee 
business and parish meetings. From laziness 
or cowardice both men and women invent 
excuses in order to account for their absence 
whenever matters requiring decisive action 
or opinion are likely to occur. The plea of 
a previous engagement or a headache has 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 6 1 

become an equivalent for a falsehood. If we 
never spoke or acted w^ithout previous thought 
(though the thought might be in the distant 
background of accumulations of experience) , 
and then gave our opinion, and did our deed 
from intensity of conviction, but with an open- 
mindedness to constant new impressions and 
experiences, men and women would oftener 
stand for some one definite mode of thinking 
and acting. Conscience is the foundation of 
individuality. Let that be developed as care- 
fully as a sense of correct English ; then, like 
each one's English speech, it will have its own 
tone and quality. 

If we only dared to be honest, society would 
gain in intellectual and moral strength. We 
all think mightily after we have left a discus- 
sion. Do we never despise ourselves that we 
have lacked the moral courage to stand for 
our convictions, and do we never hate our- 
selves that we have none ? When one has the 
courage of his convictions he becomes a 



62 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

leader somewhere, for evil or good. One of 
the most confirmed inebriates in a " Washing- 
tonian home" had a peculiar fluency in 
prayer, and led at all their meetings. 

To avoid monotony in ourselves we must 
seek expansion of our ideas and deeds ; but 
only by being mindful of others' rights and 
needs. Liberty loses its value without the 
added grace of tenderness in its action. To 
grow ourselves in our own way, to satisfy the 
wishes of those who hold a diflerent ideal from 
that towards which we are striving, — there is 
the difficulty ! And it is only solved by patient 
love. The home, with its varying interests, 
can be rendered happy only by learning the 
secret of the recognition of each other's rights 
and peculiarities, and that each has a claim to 
self-development but to a certain point. When 
sickness, death, or poverty in the home check 
further progress in some special line of work, 
no complaint should be uttered ; the inevitable 
must be accepted in brave silence, with the re- 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 63 

membrance that to fight against it is self- 
destruction. Wiien free growtli means only 
unlimited selfishness it is an evil to one's self 
and an annoyance to others. 

It is much easier for those who have a mis- 
sion to fulfil to prepare for that than for those 
who, because of their indefiniteness, must 
seek for some special work ; yet only as work 
becomes specialized is it perfect. A woman 
who, in fancying herself an individual, places 
any art, profession, or business above that of 
making her home a centre of affection and 
brightness, fortified by good, plain cooking, 
drifts into selfishness. 

In order not to inflict upon others our indi- 
vidualities, hobbies, peculiarities, idiosyn- 
crasies, — however they may degenerate, as 
does the meaning of each word, — the laws of 
solidarity and compromise must always be ob- 
served. The first is a broader law than " Do 
unto others as you would have them do to 
you ; " do to others more than you want for 



64 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

yourself. The solidarity of mankind demands 
that any personality should gird on the panoply 
of good manners ; and it is because of the lack 
of this much praised but rare possession that 
individuals become so disagreeable, while the 
purposes for which they strive may be those 
which all hold. 

The law of compromise ever adjusts the 
balance between individuality and solidarity ; 
the first preventing any mean yielding to low 
ends or unworthy motives ; the latter making 
perceptible the relationship of individuality to 
the highest possible standard of personal mo- 
rality and devotion to noble ends. 

From such a union of forces comes a far 
higher development than if individuality had 
remained aloof in shining isolation. The 
bud of purpose is deepened in color from its 
secrecy ; self-assertion is maintained with firm 
but gentle touch ; the constant accretion of 
self-control strengthens every fibre, though by 
processes that seem tedious to the young 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME, G^ 

aspirant to full and free expression of himself 
in thought and action. 

The law of compromise leads to no deceit. 
It is the self-protecting garment of society, 
worn at home and abroad ; it is not the aban- 
donment of a principle, but the waiting until 
the arrow can go straight to the mark. 

" The sun set; but set not his hope : 
Stars rose; his faith was earher up: 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye : 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time." 

Indefiniteness belongs to youth. With grow- 
ing years come definiteness and fixedness ; with 
middle life, wisdom and tenderness. The ear- 
lier qualities lose their sharp angles, though 
their centre remains more deeply buried than 
ever in intent. Fanaticism ceases, enthusiasm 
grows, help is rendered to all, not to one. 
Still the struggle between heredity and present 



66 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

circumstances overshadows us. The moment 
demands our yielding ; but our inheritance 
raises our individuality into bristling promi- 
nence. We are prone to sarcasm ; our grand- 
fathers were ; it is part of us ; but the moment 
shows we should lay it aside. Which will 
conquer, the inherited or the educated individ- 
uality? Each has his own peculiar passion 
for pleasure, meanness, or extravagance, and 
the inherited and the educated must wrestle, 
step by step, until, by repetition and aggre- 
gation of results, the victory is settled forever 
on one or the other side of individuality. The 
evil effects of heredity can be lessened, not 
only from generation to generation, but from 
year to year, while its blessed influences can 
be strengthened. As science is eradicating 
hereditary disease, so is education working 
upon evil mental peculiarities ; even now it is 
only cowardice that says : I have a misera- 
ble disposition, because my grandparents had 



INDIVIDUALITY IN HOME. 6"] 

the same. An individual to make use of 
another individual as an excuse ! Very much 
of a slave is he to himself if he allows himself 
to employ such a pretext in palliation of his 
want of effort. 

The rightful extent of individuality must 
ever remain a varying line ; yet a long view of 
life demands that we prepare ourselves by 
constant progress to be useful and honored ; 
and for that must we have time and opportu- 
nity for expression of the best that is within us. 
Because truth is relative will we work for 
what is our truth ; work, always ready to give 
it up if nearer claims arise ; always able to 
keep it until the moment comes again for 
action. The laws of solidarity and com- 
promise will stand as sentinels over others' 
rights and needs. With individuality they 
form the triad that labors for and with each 
other, that all may grow into fuller individual 
life, each home freer and happier, each church 



68 



ABOUT PEOPLE, 



more enduring, each member of society work- 
ing through definite deeds and thought into 
that clearness of vision which reflects the 
harmonies of the universe. 





STRIVING 



STRIVING. 



TN Puritan homes each child was exhorted 
to do his " duty" until the word became so 
significant of outward observance that its 
heavenly relation was lost. Modern ethical 
homes have taken " right" as their banner 
motto, and though it is capable of rousing 
enthusiasm, the zeal it creates would be for ideas 
rather than persons. Both duty and right are 
impersonal terms ; midway between them, in 
use and meaning, stands " character." Gen- 
erally in speech the verb to have precedes 
this substantive, adding the idea of a personal 
possession to its abstract statement. As it is 
something to be got, and that getting is its 



72 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

secret charm, children do not wince under 
parental entreaties to strive for it, and their 
elders eagerly claim it, as proof that they have 
manliness and power. 

Duty is done, character is made. Both in- 
dicate performance, one is long growth, the 
other may be single seed-sowing. Doing duty 
makes character, and individual character 
becomes the underlying structure of national- 
ity. The possession or the want of it, makes 
the difference between one man and another, 
between the voter who cares for his country, 
and him who gets a dollar for his ballot ; be- 
tween the men and women who strive for 
professional or public renown for the sake of 
social ambition, and those who, whether 
" praised or blamed, guard well the trust they 
neither shunned nor sought." 

When character is regarded as an epitome 
of duty alone it becomes a mass of heavy, 
moving power, bent on the accomplishment of 
its ends, and, by virtue of its weight, bearing 



STRIVING. 73 

down all obstacles with glacial rigidity, rather 
than an embodiment of grace and beauty as 
well as of power, conquering by its attractive- 
ness as much as by its solidity, for grace is just 
as much a part of character as is truthful ac- 
tion. How imperfect are all definitions of 
character when it hovers about us as a dream 
of beauty, a blessed reality, an intangible, 
actual union of strength and loveliness, as an 
ideal of a friend, the realization of our Christ, 
the blending of all separate perfections in the 
fatherhood and majesty of God ! Without 
irreverence or familiarity can we say that 
God is character ; that in Him are united 
the artist of the exquisite foreground with 
its tiny patches of beauty and the creator 
of the distance that pushes its shadows 
into chaos. The child longs to resemble 
his ideal, the parent ; the parent places 
his ideal in the exceptionally great man and 
woman, and they reach forward after divine 
excellence, which, because of its unapproach- 



74 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

able loneliness, stands pathetic and majestic 
before us. 

Character is something beyond what we see 
in a man. It resists circumstances, is self- 
sufficient ; it grows. It is an assemblage of 
qualities which distinguish one person from 
another ; it is a particular constitution of the 
mind ; the name by which we are known ; 
the name, when a noble one, at which all 
gates swing wide ; the name that shames and 
greatens. 

The germ of character Is constantly develop- 
ing until it rises into immortality, to unfold 
there into full strength and beauty. The 
slight selfishness, that yet is justified in seek- 
ing heavenly rest as a panacea, is forgotten In 
the intensity with which, while living, we 
work for those on earth and pray for the loved 
ones above. 

In a great character there will always be 
found two elements, the ideal and the imper- 
sonal : the ideal keeps It ever advancing ; the 



STRIVING. "]$ 

impersonal keeps it ever deepening, as not 
self, but others' good, is its universe. Over 
both preside conscientiousness, keen, quick, 
observant. It is the sensitive plate on which 
impressions are received ; the index that 
points to hours and deeds ; the chemical re- 
agent that crystallizes actions into forms of 
beauty and usefulness ; the spur to activity ; 
the mirror of foolishness ; the solvent of per- 
plexities. 

Character itself is formed as a gradual ac- 
cretion, which is utilized into thought and 
action. It begins at the earliest stages of ex- 
istence, and, whether we look back upon our 
own formation or guide the growth of chil- 
dren, we find distinct layers overlapping each 
other. Each is marked with the tender lines 
of grace and the bolder ones of duty, the law 
of moral necessity ruling that each shall per- 
form its full part in the making of the perfect 
character. Some few men stand as peaks 
whose grandeur is so stern that one hardly 



76 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

guesses at the sweetness which lies hidden in 
the nooks of sentiment below their rugged 
exterior. 

No trait of character is more necessary or 
prominent than truthfulness. Without it we 
build ourselves only to fall to pieces ; careless- 
ness and ignorance may cause an untruth, 
wrong-doing a lie, that is, the direct intention 
to deceive. The first lie in the child, and the 
quickly uttered lie in after life, come generally 
from the natural or unregenerate impulse of 
self-defence. We lie to screen ourselves, and 
then one by one the chain of lies is forged 
that ends in weakness, sin, and ruin. The 
utter foolishness of a lie introduces its comic 
aspect; we all object to being "found out," 
for it argues a want of skill. Like an ano- 
dyne its effect is palliative and temporary, not 
remedial. Cumulative or single falsehood 
always ends in destruction of itself. Then it 
is a universal wrong, and, when thus regarded, 
there seems something grand in not adopting, 



STRIVING. 77 

for the sake of the universe, a paltry, short- 
sighted means of defence. It is language that 
binds us all together ; by it we understand and 
depend upon each other ; to misuse it is to 
falsify our mutual relations. There can be no 
real helping, no friendship, no wide business, 
no true internationality, unless words are 
truthful. 

The twin of truthfulness, its counterpart, 
is honesty. Both older people and children 
start indignantly on being told to be honest, 
as if stealing were confined to commodities 
alone. Yet there is much actual theft in 
society. We steal each other's ideas, patterns 
for dresses, embroideries, furniture, and dis- 
play them as if inventions of our own brain. 
What is done by our French maid we call 
ours, her wages giving us a lien on her handi- 
work. There is also what sisters call free- 
masonry, and what sisterless people term 
purloining, which consists in free use of 
each other's ribbons and jewels. Members 



78 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

of a household, as well as strangers, should 
obseiTe the law of meum and tuum. Um- 
brellas are borrowed and lost, books are 
retiirned dog-eared. We steal another's time 
by asking him to do what we can do our- 
selves ; we promise to stay ten minutes, and 
we sta}' thirty. We steal other's health and 
patience by inflicting upon our friends the 
history of our own troubles, using them as a 
safet}' -valve for ourselves. As visitors we do 
not regard the honor of our hostess' family, but, 
when away from it, tell some amusing weak- 
ness belonging to it. We steal into each 
other's confidence for purposes of curiosity, 
and, worse than all, we steal aflection, often to 
reject it when it has lost its primal value. 
An affection, once deliberately won, is a 
burden or a privilege forever. Too often 
the stronger nature appropriates the weaker 
one, alienating its friends, and then, satiated, 
preys on another. It is said that women 
especially are prone to this fault, because so 



STRIVING. 79 

many feminine friendships are also partner- 
ships. But it is equally found among the 
relations of married people and of men with 
men. We also steal each other's reputation 
by withholding praise when it is due, by 
delicate or careless insinuations ; by alluding 
to the disagreeable, in an acquaintance, without 
mentioning the extenuating circumstances. 
We often lessen another's impulse to greater 
striving by non-utterance of our admiration 
and love for him, our cool manners acting as 
non-conductors of energy. Want of appre- 
ciation of others becomes injustice. We do 
not try to understand before judging ; people's 
motives are often better than their awkward 
results, actions. We are more liable to be- 
come depressed from lack of approval than 
self-conceited from knowledge of it. 

Perfect truthfulness proceeds froni noble 
simplicity, which seeks a worthy end rather 
than tawdry effect. Having given itself, it 
evokes as free surrender in another. Its 



8o ABOUT PEOPLE. 

honest praise is never the hollowness of idle 
compliment ; it is glad tribute gladly paid. 
It passes along the by-ways of life, and divines 
those hearts which are not strong enough to 
rest alone in self-respect, but need outward 
approval as recognition of effort. 

Simplicity is often the result of early striv- 
ing and of petty victories. Human nature 
soon passes out of the childlike, happy stage 
of unconsciousness. As conscience awakens, 
as self-reflection is observed through the co- 
existence of others, consciousness develops ; it 
is the New England hereditary gift ; it be- 
comes a tormenting, prismatic light caught 
from every angle of life. Only as purpose 
deepens are the many colors concentrated 
into the white ray of simplicity. Sin, fri- 
volity, selfishness, pass into rectitude, serious- 
ness, disinterestedness ; one becomes earnest 
to be or do something ; one cares to make 
others happy ; one's own shortcomings, misery, 
or happiness are all lost in intention ; and 



STRIVING. 8 1 

thus one grows again into unconsciousness, 
where it is best for peace's sake to remain ; 
conscious of his purpose, unconscious of 
the way of obtaining it. 

But peace and purpose demand self-control, 
which is the rock on which the whole charac- 
ter rests. 

Unless self-controlled one can neither govern 
nor follow others long, for all take part in 
helping mankind, as assistants or leaders. 
Self-control is mastery of one's self. It is self- 
restraint ; the ability to hold back from doing 
the wrong or silly things, goaded by the whip 
of conscience. 

Self-control teaches that temperance ap- 
plies to much more than meat or drink ; that it 
is neither the demand for too much of any 
one thing nor the constant search for novelty. 
We throw away what is old by the law of 
fashion, rather than by the law of use. We 
call for new books, new bric-a-brac, new 
pleasures ; we hunt for old-fashioned furniture 



82 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

in mockery of the new ; we are not creators, 
but takers, each wanting something more than 
he has, no one ever reaching the height of his 
social ambition. We ask that life shall fill 
each hour with new pleasures, never remem- 
bering that temperance always leaves on hand 
material for a good time later. We justify 
our restlessness by calling It the spirit of the 
times ; we go farther, and make temperament 
or Inheritance an excuse for Inactivity. 

This is cowardly, fatal to effort, sets a mis- 
erable example, and results In transmission of 
less moral strength to the next generation, 
which should Inherit even more richly from 
us their past than we have from ours. The 
present Is always trustee to the future. 

Self-control often seems unnecessary, and 
brings disappointment in plans which we had 
hoped would succeed, if It had not proved 
foolish to urge them. It also teaches patience 
with one's self and others, bravery, superiority 
to circumstances, contentment, power to work, 



STRIVING. 83 

and ability to bear the joy or sorrow of life, 
and thus freedom. Men and women alike 
need it, for the more that one sees of life the 
less perceptible are differences of sex, and the 
more prominence do varying types of char- 
acter assume. Every one should have it, he 
who commands, and she who endures ; the 
narrow life and the broad one, the prisoner 
and the traveller, the clerk and the merchant, 
the belle of society and the unknown worker 
in her attic. Yet, certainly, the semi-public 
life (may it never be the publicity of political 
life,) on which women are ei^terlng more and 
more ; fairs and clubs, sanitary and charitable 
work of all kinds, are teaching self-control. 
Women, now, dare not snap at each other, as 
they might like, if they want to gain their end ; 
they are learning to compromise honestly, to 
allow others their way, and in social judgments 
to separate opinion from practice. It will 
soon be a proverb : Never think you know a 
woman till you serve on a committee with her. 



84 ABOUT PE OPLE. 

Self-control also gives ability for j^romptness 
and the observance of order ; the first, though 
formed as a habit, can soon become a prin- 
ciple, and so ennoble the wearisomeness of 
details. It is the clock-work guiding life, 
while unpunctuality is a robbery of one's own, 
and a sure robbery of others' time. The prin- 
ciple clinches the purpose by carrying it into 
action at once. It sees that if a thing is right 
to do now it is wrong to do it by and by. It 
wastes not its powers for work, and never loses 
energy or freshness of feeling ; it accepts no 
excuse of carelessness or absent-mindedness, 
for excuse in itself implies that the reason 
offered as excuse was not necessity. It leads 
to the great law of Order, which allows no 
minor derelictions in personal lives. 

We are governed by this principle while yet 
governing its details. Many persons become 
slaves to a fixed recurrence of action, consid- 
ering that recurrence alone as order ; but self- 
sacrifice often demands the neglect of little 



STRIVING. %^ 

things which orderly habit seems to make im- 
perative, since some higher good to others re- 
quires instant performance. Such neglect, 
however, is but the fulfilment of order, which 
seeks that the greatest duty be first done. Its 
chief value in life is this adjustment of the 
relative importance of actions. We are very 
apt to esteem minor necessities as major ones, 
and so miss the grandeur of opportunity. 
Those who have carried on the world's work 
have performed it by selecting what was 
first or most important, and not simply by 
doing that which turned up first. So much 
of life is lost because order is supposed to 
mean a place for everything and everything in 
its place, — a repetition of a mere routine of 
hours and occupation, rather than the observ- 
ance of this relative proportion of duties. 

That perceived, then concentration turns 
perception into action, and is the sign of 
power. All great acts have been fulfilled by 
its command, either slowly, as execution de- 



86 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

manded time, or quickly, by what is termed 
impulse, which is, in truth, instant self-posses- 
sion, acute presence of mind. How slovenly 
is most performance, while the great forces of 
the universe, daily little experiences, mental 
struggles, weak ambitions, special interests, or 
general work, join in the clanging call to con- 
centrate, to gather up scattered human efforts, 
and aid in thought and do in deed ! The loose 
thinking which seems inherent in so many per- 
sons is due to want of concentration. All can- 
not apply their minds to all subjects ; some, in- 
deed, can grasp none that require abstraction. 
Their incapacity soon betrays itself, as is seen 
by the helpless wandering of the eye, the con- 
fused smile, the feeble joke, the harmless 
incoherence of their words. Most people so 
fail, though yet admiring power in others. 
How beautiful and inspiring it is to watch a 
face as it really thinks ; to see the ugly lines 
fade away ; the eyes deepen ; the forehead 
broaden and shine ; the mouth grow firm, even 



STRIVING. 87 

the whole posture showing the making of a 
thought ! 

Continued, persistent application bends time 
and material to its purpose. Through it the 
money-market might replace the term specu- 
lation by foresight or judgment, and inventions 
might correspond to human needs rather than 
to human ingenuity. Five minutes' absorption 
of the child's mind in the effort to learn his 
letters teaches more than their names. Busy 
people have the most time ; as they give all 
their strength to whatever they are doing, so it 
is soon done and well done. Scatter-brained 
work and play is lengthy and fatiguing. 
Patience, Perseverance, and Thoroughness, 
the three elements of concentration, enter into 
the composition of a genius. 

Greater than any other result of character is 
its blessed privilege of usefulness, the chief 
function of our being, the proud prerogative that 
man shares with nature, the test and measure 
of our worth in doing and being. In doing, it 



88 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

consists largely in working for other people 
in their way, not ours. Too often we like 
to make them happy by the method that 
gives us the least trouble, and, if they will not 
rejoice, we turn upon them and call them un- 
grateful. When other success wanes that of 
usefulness still remains ; attention to others' 
wants, and sympathy for them, create ability 
to aid, and practice brings tact and grace. 
Each year, day, and hour is the maker of op- 
portunity to him who takes the horizon as his 
boundary line of helpful work. 

For those to whom limitation has forbidden 
activity there is the usefulness of being, the 
passive side of character. The being ready 
not to do is the hardest lesson of life ; not to do 
in household striving, in mother's cares and 
longings, in noble, personal ambitions, in shar- 
ing the great throes of the world which ulti- 
mate in victories of social progress, in shaping 
anew the warped intellectual life, which de- 
generates into affectation of literary values ; and 



STRIVING. 89 

in keeping at bay, by watchful, tender care, 
death, which seeks our beloved. 
The helpless soldier sang : — 

" I lay me down to sleep 

With little thought . or care 
Whether my waking find 
Me here — or There ! 



A bowing, burdened head, 
That only asks to rest 

Unquestioning upon 
A loving breast. 

' My good right hand 

Forgets its cunning now, — 
To march the weary march 
I know not how. 

■ I am not eager, bold. 

Nor strong, — all that is past 
I am ready Not To Do, 

At last, at last. 



90 'ABOUT PEOPLE. 

" My half day's work is done, 
And this is all my part; 
I give a patient God 
My patient heart, 



" And grasp his banner still; 
Though all its blue be dim, 
These stripes, no less than stars, 
Lead after Him." 

Let reverent, joyful thanks be ever given for 
usefulness in doing and in being. We may lie 
down tired with our efforts, we may wake 
more tired, but as we think, "What now?" 
there flashes across the mind some fresh act of 
self-sacrifice or of ability to help in some hidden 
or visible manner, and there comes instant 
strength to reap fruition. The purpose sends 
the blood to the weary limbs and the cheer of 
the heart quiets the aching head. Never too 
poor, too ugly, too dull, too sick, too friendless, 
to be useful to some one. Now, one can live, 
no matter what may be the pain in living ; and 







STRIVING, 




\ 


91 


heaven is 


use, 


too. 


That 


glory 


\ 
cc^s 


not 


with Hfe. 















Then "Trust in all things high" dwells 
within us, and, as we trust others, we make 
ourselves worthy of trust ; guarding another's 
confidence as our birthright, never deceiving or 
betraying it, for such betrayal makes sore 
hearts and lonely lives. We are neither jeal- 
ous nor suspicious, and believe another right 
until we know the contrary. Much of our 
early trust passes away from us like an out- 
grown garment. Knowledge proves insuffi- 
cient, creeds shrink before experience, friend- 
ships wither, ideals pass not into realities ; but 
trust in the universe deepens as years add wis- 
dom. It is that trust which enables us, what- 
ever heaven may be, to bear the bitter fact 
that we no longer have father or mother, hus- 
band or child, — that we are helpless, often 
homeless. Hardest of all is it, at times, to 
trust God's righteousness, which runs so ad- 
verse to our ideas of right. Why, if we did not 



/ 

92 ' ABOUT PEOPLE. 

trust id^ more than we think we do, we could 
i>jc endure the misery of others. Immortality 
' finds strong ground for belief in our trust that 
our longings cannot be deceived. And if we 
trust, unconsciously to ourselves, that feeling 
has shown itself in the light of our eye and the 
elasticity of our steps. " God's in his heaven ; 
all's right with the world," sings Pippa. We 
sing it, too, though her God and our God may 
have little alike except the trust we give to 
each. 

With trust comes that element of character 
which, starting in childhood, has not its full 
value until the intellectual nature of the man 
or woman has weighed the problems of life 
and the secrets of knowledge. Reverence, 
without which no poet is a seer, no scientist 
a lover of truth ; reverence, reaching from the 
commonest fact to the grandest discovery ; from 
the humblest impulse to the noblest deed. Our 
reverence 



STRIVING. 93 

"... is foolish by falling below, 
Not coming above what God will show; 
His commonest thing hides a wonder vast 
To whose beauty our eyes have never past," 

It is reverence that gives the finest touch to 
chivalry and the deepest meaning to truth ; it is 
an attitude of mind v^hich permits us to see, 
enjoy, and honor. It grows w^ith our growth, 
though too often self-imposed limitations 
check it. Our irreverence is due to want of 
sympathy and observation more than to ill- 
will. A knowledge of the hard times in 
other people's lives, of their brave little at- 
tempts for goodness or success, and of all that 
careful human eyes and microscope and tele- 
scope have found of law, and love, and beauty 
fill us with reverence. Finally, as life widens, 
the faculty of worship and appreciation is de- 
veloped, until every half-known law or half- 
comprehended goodness is the " vision of some 
marvel come to light." 

He who from his mountain-top of reverence 



94 



ABOUT PEOPLE. 



places trust in the unrolled plan of life assigned 
him, seeking use in grand or humble guise as 
his goal, girding himself with a mighty will to 
bring forth the evolution of order, keeps life 
sweet and brave by his daily truth. He stands 
as, — character, the word losing its abstract 
signification in the grace and dignity with which 
he has invested it, for the realization of the 
ideal is the aim of all true individuality. 





LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 



T OYALTY and ■ liberality are habits of 
thought transmuted into modes of action. 
In the modern desire to be free from prejudice 
we are losing loyalty ; because truth is so mul- 
tiform, we forget that its purpose is single ; we 
wish to be broad, and we become vague ; we 
dislike partisanship, and we grow indifferent. 
We think of loyalty as a patriotic virtue, and 
forget that it is the outcome of all intense con- 
viction ; we even feel it to be a mark of illiber- 
ality, while yet the want of it is impoverishing 
our natures, and is pauperizing society. We 
are so afraid lest we be called sectarian that, 
in our insistence upon all possible good in 



98 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

others, we hesitate to affirm what is good in 
our own opinion, our very charity often caus- 
ing our disloyalty. 

Loyalty involves the relations between our- 
selves and some truth or duty. Liberality the 
relations between ourselves and persons. Both 
demand courage ; one demands breadth. Each 
should keep equal pace in growth, for each is 
the complement of the other. Loyalty is faith- 
fulness and adherence to one's country, friend, 
faith, duty, or opinion, by open acknowledg- 
ment in word and act. It is always free and 
generous, and seeks to strengthen whatever it 
deems worthy of belief. It gives persistence 
and enthusiasm to character. It is a certainty 
of faith, which may or may not be a heritage 
of joy. In either case it may cause separation 
in thought or act from those who have other 
objects of fealty. It should include the propa- 
gation of one's belief just so far as such 
spreading of it does not entail persecution. 
About any unit of thought, environed by 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 99 

loyalty, cluster action, organization ; the 
thought crystallizing into creed and deed. 
Unquestioning enthusiasms and friendships 
develop loyalty at an early age, when its 
declarations are apt to be those of unreasoning 
prejudice rather than of calm, intense convic- 
tion based on thought and experience. It 
cannot exist in its nobler, permanent aspects 
until it has fortified itself by liberality. 

Liberality must always be born of know^l- 
edge, for though, like Loyalty, it may spring 
largely from sentiment or kindliness, it would 
fail in many of life's emergencies unless it also 
possessed wisdom. It is the power to look at 
events, persons, and thoughts from another 
stand-point than our own, which requires sym- 
pathy, created by insight and comprehension. 
But we fancy that at times special occasions 
justify us in terming another's ideas absurd ; 
because we are sure we know, and that the 
possession of such knowledge should necessi- 
tate moral obligation in action ; thus including 



lOO ABOUT PEOPLE. 

the idea of ought in that of liberality, as if our 
right ought to prove another's wrong, and to 
compel him to adopt our ideas. Liberality 
must adjust the equation of ought between our- 
selves and others. The extent of the applica- 
tion of our ought to some one else establishes 
the foundation of social relations. Though the 
world teems with individual and organized 
efforts for the conversion of others to some 
one's notion of ought, their attempts should 
never bear the red mark of persecution, as they 
have borne it in the past. 

Many people consider liberality as a product 
of the heart. They fancy that definite opinion 
excludes liberalism, and fear that, the more 
they know, the less certain will they be of arriv- 
ing at conclusions ; yet they vaguely feel that 
mental decisions are necessary. Though defi- 
nite opinions can abide with appreciation of 
another's convictions, people like to be freed 
from the burden of making up their mind. 
Much that passes muster for liberality is sham, 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. lOl 

or indifference, which latter is the tempter's 
own device for cheating one into laziness. 
Clear, definite convictions result from the 
union of liberality and loyalty. When loyalty 
stands upon some narrow point of opinion, 
liberality surrounds it with proofs that truth 
also lies elsewhere, and intellectual somer- 
saults are the result, leaving the mental acro- 
bat on one and another rock instead of on the 
table-land of thought. 

Every one should know what he believes, 
and why, in religion, politics, social affairs, 
moral obligations, and philosophical consider- 
ations. Ignorance is no excuse for accepting 
results from another without the trouble of 
examining them. Such questions cannot be 
answered by books alone, as they need one's 
own life-experience and that of others . If the 
reply corresponds to one's needs then search 
ceases, for salvation corncth when belief is 
fraught with strength and honesty. Negation 
often is as definite and noble as assertion; the 



I02 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

agnostic may be as loyal as the Christian. 
The arrogance of an exclusive sectarianism 
demands omniscience, but patience and humil- 
ity constantly say, "Not yet;" and refuse 
acceptance of any dogma until convinced. 
It is hard to persuade zealots that loyalty can 
call for negation without a corresponding 
assertion. Their little science teaches them 
that a vacuum must be filled, and, wh^n their 
opponent expresses his dissent from their 
views, they imperiously demand what is 
believed ; and cannot comprehend why some 
idea has not rushed into the mind to take the 
place of what, in their opinion, should have 
occupied it. Unknown to the thinker, as to 
them, crystals of thought may be forming, 
although his habit of self-restraint forbids their 
taking definite shape, until they have absorbed 
all they need from the surrounding elements. 
It is hard for ultra-minded people to believe 
that liberality does not belong to any one sect 
or party. They leave conversative, expedient 



LOYALTY AND LLBERALLTY. 103 

organizations, and form minor associations 
with the fiilse battle-cry of HberaHty. 

When HberaHty is considered as a product 
of the heart, as a gift of temperament and 
intuition, it lacks that permanent force which 
results from knowledge and experience. In- 
tuitions may be safe, but as they are not con- 
scious, logical processes, they should not be 
regarded as authoritative. Imbibing by a 
process of faith is uncertain ground for con- 
viction. Under its guidance the kindly heart 
cannot reach unto the depths of suffering or 
joy in another which self-experience has never 
probed. Intuition may be safely followed 
through average ordeals, but experience leads 
open-eyed and clear-minded amid unusual 
perplexities. 

Must and ought are the adjuncts of illiber- 
ality, which is the hinderance of another in his 
pursuits and opinions. Even the force of per- 
sonality should be careful in imposing itself 
upon others to such a degree that their free 



I04 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

will is destroyed. The freedom we claim for 
ourselves is owed in return. Each finds the 
practical answer by his own gauge of intui- 
tion and experience. The world-wide rela- 
tions of every person are settled in concentric 
rings, ever widening from their first or 
innermost circle. The idea of ought, as op- 
posed to or mingled with the conception of 
liberality, finds its first circle of decision, em- 
braces those of its own household, the final 
circle including the brotherhood of human- 
ity. 

The manner in which people and events 
are spoken of in early home-life creates the 
first impressions, received unconsciously, 
which will affect the child's future way of 
thought and action. Soon he notices the va- 
riance between words and deeds ; he hears 
his mother say that a certain course of pro- 
ceeding coincides with her idea of right, and, 
at the same time, he sees her help a friend in 
ways averse to her expressed opinion. He 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 105 

does not yet know whether to characterize 
her words and acts as inconsistent or liberal. 
The puzzle has begun which will haunt him 
for years, until he, too, has learned that a broad 
outlook and a fervent faith necessitate each 
other. School-life soon teaches him to be 
loyal to truth and honor, in withliolding from 
mean and doubtful ways with such pleasant- 
ness that he attracts his fellows into right 
observance rather than repels them from the 
circle of his friendship. College and board- 
ing-schools enforce these lessons with a power 
that each one knows best for himself. 

Church life again presents them. Within 
a hundred years religion in America has 
burst the shackles that fettered it. After State 
conventions had ceased to support the church 
by public tax, creed tests were still retained, 
belief in which was evidence of eligibility 
for holding office. Not only must Protes- 
tantism be accepted, but, in Delaware, be- 
lief in the Trinity; in Pennsylvania, belief 



lo6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

in God and the inspiration of the Bible. 
When the Constitution was framed, in 1787, 
it read: "No religious test shall ever be 
required as a qualification to any office or 
public trust under the United States." Re- 
ligion, though freed from State control, is 
still in bondage to the church. The com- 
munion is oftener a test act than a memorial 
service. Narrow convictions have led to the 
founding of new sects, the separation within 
the division, each based on a point more or 
less broad, from whose contracting influence 
humanity perpetually escapes, for the law of 
progress ever makes the liberality of to-day 
the sectarianism of to-morrow. Earnest be- 
lief, tempered with comprehension of other 
creeds, has been the fulcrum which has lifted 
church-life into the philanthropy of human- 
ity. Contrast Loyala, the sectarian alone, 
with Fenelon, the sectarian and the liberal ; 
Edwards with Channing, Wesley with Wil- 
berforce, John Knox with the author of 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALLTY. 107 

" Theologia Germanica," the schoolmen and 
priests with Columbus and Galileo. 

In the reaction from mysticism and church 
theology the claim to eternal life has been 
founded on doing to such an extent that 
one is ready to shout with the revivalist, 
"Doing is a deadly sin." What has become 
of rapt absorption in the thought of something 
which is not of concrete apprehension? 
Where now are the faces that should make a 
Sistine Madonna and a St. Jerome? A 
loyal, liberal faith takes not meanness as a 
synonyme for deacon, nor petition for prayer, 
and finds the equivalent terms for religious 
and political economy in the text-book of 
life. The reconciliation of science and re- 
ligion is the finding and the worshipping. 

Many are so liberal up to a certain point 
that it is almost thought that they have the 
breadth of universal sympathy ; but suddenly 
they reach a bound beyond which they refuse 
fellowship. Many find it hard to be fair and 



Io8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

generous towards those who, in a spirit of rev- 
erence to all truth, feel they have not yet 
proved a God. If one, himself, holds a stead- 
fast belief in Him, and wishes to make others 
feel as he does, can he not yet see that certain 
minds must have what they deem facts as 
proofs? Can he not wait? Must others be- 
lieve instantly because he does? His God 
must be a very small God if his Impatience 
can hurry others into belief. To wait, and to 
plan while waiting, is the secret of liberality's 
action. The weakness of human nature is 
nowhere seen more strongly than in the invol- 
untary presentation to the childishly finite mind 
of the infinite questions of the existence and 
abode of God, and of immortality. What it 
can never answer it first asks. Because our 
lives are all aglow with the hope of immortal- 
ity shall we scorn another who looks upon it 
simply as a reward for striving here, or shall 
we shudder at him who looks bravely into Im- 
mensity and sees nothing nearer than the 



LOYALTY AND LIRERALLTY. 109 

divine obligation to love one another on earth ? 
It Is hard to do neither, but the more w^e know 
the easier w^ill it be. One's own mental 
strength should facilitate comprehension of 
others' doubtino^ or waitino^ attitude. 

Words, like symbols, acquire special mean- 
ings, and are the keys to sectarian as well as to 
scientific storehouses. The kindly deception 
that permits one person to use a word In a 
mythical sense which another accepts as a state- 
ment of fact is incompatible with accurate 
thinking. Rather say : Your fact Is my sym- 
bol ; to you the fact, to me the symbol. Is 
God's call to both to make the thoughts of each 
definite and clear. An Episcopalian clergy- 
man preached for a Baptist parson. At the 
close of the sermon the Baptist said: " I am 
sorry I cannot ask you to partake of the Lord's 
Supper, but you are not a close communi- 
cant." — " Oh." replied the churchman, "even 
if you should ask me, I could not stay ; for I 
cannot receive the bread and wine from one 



no ABOUT PEOPLE. 

who has never been ordained." A very nar- 
row distinction, exclaim those who stand out- 
side ; a veiy real one, say those who stand 
within. 

It is in minor matters of social life that our 
illiberality constantly surprises us. Reforms 
are most notable examples of it. As, for in- 
stance, those who do not wear mourning can 
appreciate neither the protection it affords nor 
its graduated hues. A violent anti-tobacconist 
refuses the name of gentleman to a smoker ; a 
teetotaler deems a glass of sherry a sign of 
inebriation ; even puddings must lose their 
flavor under reformatory zeal, and silver tank- 
ards of the past must be termed " ciiristening 
bowls ; " a man who smokes and drinks may 
be fit for heaven, but not for marriage or 
society. 

Unconventionality brands conventionality as 
narrow. The longer one lives, however, the 
more is the safeguard of ceremony valued. 
As almost every social convention had its ori- 



Z YAL T Y AND LIB ERA LIT Y. 1 1 1 

gin in some use or fear, the outward utility of 
politeness, though not yet making its valua- 
tions aright, must keep pace with inward rec- 
ognition of equality. The American knows 
no fear, but as often loves to praise as to peck 
at his superior. Witness the adulation offered 
our political heroes and our friends, as well as 
the slander cast upon them. 

Are those out of society liberal towards 
those in it.? Many a fashionably dressed and 
handsome girl has to suffer the reputation of 
being frivolous and haughty, when she has 
only a youthful capacity for enjoyment and a 
love for pretty things. Unkindness is often 
shown in the feelings towards a popular per- 
son. It indicates, at least, self-command and 
tact to be popular, yet a popular person or 
lecturer is regarded as suitable for the masses. 
Such narrowness includes self-denunciation ; 
we are part of the masses. 

Women, especially, formulate conventional 
judgments, graduated by approximation to a 



112 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

certain standard of manner and dress. They 
accept or outlaw one another by the number of 
buttons on gloves, the shape of bonnets, and 
a Greek or French " tournure." Externals 
are generally a good basis for primary opin- 
ion, but never a reason for illiberality towards 
those whom taste does not approve. To 
refuse to associate with others because their 
manners are not suited to our liking is pro- 
vincial, and provincialism is the essence of 
illiberality, while cosmopolitanism is the 
essence of liberality. Business and preoccu- 
pation cannot be oflered as excuses for illiber- 
alism and provincialism. An unknown or 
queer person is invited to a family dinner. 
An estimable woman wdio wore greens and 
purples of bygone shades, who lounged 
rather than sat, and who had lived in Boston 
for several years, excused her shortcomings 
by explaining that she had never been invited 
to a meal where she met any other lady than 
the hostess. Who has the courage to stop 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 1 13 
and speak first? The one who is most 
liberal, who knows that cordiality takes no 
more time than rudeness. 

Want of liberality and excess of loyalty to 
one's surroundings introduces a comic aspect 
into charities. Rich people often prefer to 
employ a missionary to visit the poor, rather 
than to go themselves, because " such an one 
is more like the poor's own kind." The 
Associated Charities tries to leap the gulf of 
inequalities by saying, " Visitors and Visited." 
The gulf of difference is there ; insight and 
liberality cannot merely span it, but fill it up. 
The poor are too proud to say they are poor ; 
the rich, too anxious to escape any imputation 
of nouveau riche or aristocracy. A liberal 
spirit accepts classifications as outwardly true, ' 
and then, through sympathy, forgets them in 
action. 

Housework and children are common 
ground for all women, politics and trade for all 
men. The poor are as interested in the 



114 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

wealtny as the latter are in them. A certain 
old lady, who in her days of eyesight had been 
in a printer's office and later was supported 
by charity, said: "Young girls nowadays 
dress dowdy when they come to see us poor 
folks, and call it equality. If it were, they 
wouldn't make such a fuss to hide it. I'd like 
to see their silks and satins, and hear about 
their beaux. It's as good as a love story, even 
if you haint ever had the chance to get mar- 
ried ; but they just talk about my rheumatism 
and how to cook oatmeal till they don't do 
one a bit of good." 

The demands of socialism in all its various 
phases can never be adjusted until capital and 
competition put themselves in thought at the 
stand-point of wages and cooperation. Com- 
prehension, not of their wrongs so much as of 
what they think are their wrongs, is the only 
way in which, one can meet, by argument or 
by law, the requirements of the working- 
classes. House-keepers have to contend with 



LOYALTY AND LLBERALITY. 115 

one form of ignorant, aggressive demand. 
Tlie I-am-as-good-as-you-are feeling is the 
root of the claim for more wages and of 
impudent answers. Our servants are our 
children ; home is a missionary field ; insight 
understands why our cook grows tired of 
always being a cook. We go oft' to our 
parlor ; she stays by the cooking-stove. 

All have not yet learned to be actively liberal 
towards colored people. A formal and touch- 
ing protest came from certain of them, begging 
for more equal chances in the struggle for self- 
support. The city gave their children, it said, 
the same instruction as it offered those who 
were white ; but when colored girls at the 
North graduated they must either be washer- 
women, or marry and bring more children 
into this unequal world ; while white girls 
found places in shops or as teachers, they 
were rejected, because other employes or 
school-children disliked them, and all black 
maidens did not wish to go South as instructors. 



Il6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

The colored girl of the same ability as the 
white has not the same chance in earning a 
livelihood. If nature establishes the limits of 
color, it also permits educated labor to succeed, 
yet custom forbids. A friend found a vase, 
black in hue, placed on an end of his mantel- 
piece and a white one on the opposite corner. 
He looked at them shudderingly, uttered the 
word, " miscegenation," and ordered them 
removed. His feeling about the blacks could 
not even tolerate the mismated vases. 

There is also the illiberality of the classical 
against the scientific tendency in education. 
A Greek scholar denounced President Eliot as 
prejudiced because he favored the introduction 
of more scientific studies, which the erudite 
speaker thought were best fitted for laboring 
people, and a president of a Western college 
characterized Harvard as only suitable for an 
aristocratic community. Graduation at Cam- 
bridge or Yale is equivalent to a mark of 
social superiority, supposed to be incomparably 



LOYALTY AND LLBERALITY. 117 

better than any mental results which may fol- 
low from careful, individual work in a Western 
or Southern college ; the graduates from such 
an one, on the other hand, are sometimes 
anxious to conceal the name of their Alma 
Mater. 

And is there nothing to be said about the 
illiberality of those of the regular school 
toward homoeopaths, and of the latter towards 
the former? Surely each man honestly 
believes he is right. Does loyalty to a con- 
viction that a "pathy" is wrong compel 
quibbles in order to escape cooperation in 
social or benevolent work ? Does it justify the 
charge of " intellectual dishonesty " ? Another 
school may be stupid, but not immoral. 
Personal morality, as affecting his mental or 
medical uprightness, should, ai least, be granted 
to an opponent. | 

There is a liberality to be observed in per- 
sonal habits, even in food. If children are 
trained to take what is on the vable, they are 



Il8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

taught a virtue which will serve them in after 
years, when exposed to the chances of res- 
taurants and a friend's kitchen. A vegetarian 
is a terrible guest. An Englishman, at a 
breakfast served in his honor, declined dish 
after dish. At last the hostess said, "You 
will try some potatoes.?" — "Yes, thanks," 
was his glad assent; but, as he beheld them 
baked in their brown coverings, he observed, 
" I never eat them unless boiled." Two tired 
ministers were invited to tea at the house of a 
millionnaire. The weary guests fed on dainty 
viands and drank water; "for," explained 
the host, in uncertain tone, " my wife finds 
that as tea disagrees with her, it must also 
be of no benefit to others." 

Leadership and union in work need lib- 
erality, for there can be no hearty acceptance 
of another's guidance without it. Then the 
intelligent and the unintelligent, those who 
are conventioixal and those who are earnest, 
can work together for the sake of a common 



LOYALTY AND LLBERALTTY. 119 

good. Mutual peculiarities are, however, 
to be understood and avoided; thinking 
of them is amusing, speaking is danger- 
ous ; capacities are to be recognized, claims 
adjusted, self-seeking avoided. When will 
men and women be large enough to accept 
another's valuation of them which does not 
place them where they put themselves? How 
many are there who are willing to lead until 
fitter persons are found, and who then will 
withdraw, feeling grateful that they have done 
some good, and still more grateful that others 
can accomplish better results than they? How 
many are there who are brave enough to 
accept the mandates of a liberality that gives 
one measure and refuses another ; that under- 
stands weakness and strength? Clubs, unions, 
societies, organizations of all kinds, political, 
social, reformatory, ' or beneficent, will never 
reach their highest consummation, nor will 
society be a broad, deep channel of usefulness 
and pleasure, until liberality is the patent 



I20 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

mark of each ; until we can bear to hear the 
truth about ourselves ; until we can be brave 
enough to utter it about our fellow-workers. 

It is a blessed fact that life compels us to 
work together, though in our thoughts and 
with our words we stand far off from each 
other. Is my neighbor wrong because I am 
right ? No one yet can say he has attained unto 
absolute truth. The truth is absolute just so 
far as it is each man's duty to do only that 
which he believes is his present truth ; but that 
truth may be relative to another person. 
Relativity of truth is the fundamental equation 
between our differing beliefs. Its relativeness 
is no excuse for not believing something, and 
no excuse for not wishing that others might 
arrive at our stand-point ; while it is the reason 
for acknowledging the why and wherefore of 
another's belief, and for liberality in our thought 
and treatment of them ; as variety is a divine 
law of human nature. Do we ever know each 
other or ourselves? Is not the best of our 



LOYALTY AND LIBERALITY. 121 

natures unknown or dim to us ? That glory, 
almost was within our grasp, has it gone ? Was 
it our fault ; or could not we reach it? 

" Perhaps in us all there are heights of will, 
And shadowy deeps of thought, 
A land in the heart of each one's Ufa 
With self-surprises fraught." 

Shall we merely tolerate each other ? That 
is too small a word. We are to comprehend 
another in his truth, as he understands us in 
ours. The larger unity to come must be one 
of purpose ; for the faith and hope of each per- 
son will sing themselves into a creed. With 
reverent spirit for others' purpose must we all 
approach any offered feast of friendship. 
Another's thought is not alone to be trans- 
formed into our experience, but to be transub- 
stantiated. It thus becomes a vital, individual 
product again in some one else. Fundamental 
agreements are deeper than surface contradic- 
tions. 



122 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

Through loyalty shall we never feel that 
truth has been lessened by our cowardice, for 
having established its convictions, upon care- 
fully examined premises, they have become 
data of assured action. Loyalty never shrinks 
from its own statement ; it feels its truth is the 
only truth worth living for, but it does not rush 
towards instant fulfilment, for, while believing, 
it is willing to work and wait quietly. Loyalty 
stands by the falling friend, while liberality 
understands why he falls. Loyalty takes 
Recognition for its motto, clings fast and sees 
wide. Because it is the reverent worship and 
advancement of the true, it feels deference 
towards others' reverence ; yet 

" It yields no step in the awful race, 
No blow in the fearful fight;" 
and still, 

"The hidden river runs, 

It qviickens all the ages down. 
It binds the sires to sons." 

The river of human sympathy, of liberality. 




TilE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN, 



TT THAT is this curious product of to-day, 
' ^ the American girl or woman? Does 
the heroine of any American novel fitly stand 
as a type of what she is ? and, furthermore, is 
it possible for any novel within the next fifty 
years truly to depict her as a finality, when 
she is still emerging from new conditions 
in a comparatively old civilization, when she 
does not yet understand herself; and when her 
actions are often the awkward results of 
motives, complex in their character, uncon- 
sciously to herself? Pessimists speak of 
woman's foibles as constitutional, and displayed 
alike in all ages and countries. Optimists, 



126 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

accepting this statement, add to it the factor of 
evolution, and believe that just as the race has 
been modified physically by climate and con- 
ditions of life, so will the former type of 
woman, by elimination of the weaker elements 
and survival of the fittest, be essentially modi- 
fied into something larger and better than has 
yet been. But, as in all modifications some- 
thing valuable is often lost, there is danger that 
many of the present tendencies amongst women 
will be developed into undue and harmful 
prominence. 

-The expression in the faces of the past and 
present woman indicates a change. A certain 
noted physician, on receiving a new case, 
always calls for earlier and later photographs 
of his patient, that he may compare the changes 
wrought in the course of years, which may 
have contributed to the present condition. 
Such a gallery of portraits might help in a 
diagnosis of our modern woman. The peace 
and equipoise, the hauteur, united with uncon- 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 1 27 

sciousness of self, are all gone. The face of 
to-day is stamped with restlessness, wandering 
purpose, and self-consciousness. The trusting 
religious tone has vanished from conversation. 
A modern "lunch" affords opportunity for 
testing ordinary feminine talk, which is never 
bad or vulgar, on the whole, not even frivolous, 
but is marked by superficiality in its discussion 
of novels and subjects, though showing great 
familiarity with all known and to be known 
publications. Each woman could talk far 
better than she does if she were not hampered 
by self-consciousness. An Englishv/oman said, 
"At home, politics and party measures are dis- 
cussed at our ladies' lunches, but in America 
one must first go to a circulating library before 
accepting a noonday invitation." Latterly 
suffrage has become a feature of conversa- 
tion, but often in a humorous or questioning 
vein rather than in an argumentative or 
serious manner. Gossip — not scandal — and 
allusions to conventional modes of philan- 



128 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

thropy lake the place of discussion of yester- 
day's sermon or the last congressional debate. 
If one wishes a foreigner to form a favorable 
opinion of women, apart from any special vo- 
cation they may have, he should be invited to 
a ladies' lunch, pure and simple, and he will 
be compelled to admit that American women 
are easy, brilliant, kindly, cultivated, and alto- 
gether charming. But he will read restless- 
ness in many a face, will notice an empresse- 
nieitt of manner, a little hurry in the gait, 
quick tones of voice, a business air, suggestive 
of the surmise that all these women are " in" 
or "at something." The leisurely, graceful 
element is wanting. 

Society has grown so complex in both town 
and country that it is difficult to assert any 
universal predicates of either, without fear of 
contradiction. The New England woman 
should be taken as the largest representative 
of the whole country, because the Southern 
woman is minus her driving qualities, plus an 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 129 

added grace and piquant deportment ; and the 
Western woman is minus the Southern charm 
and the New England self-consciousness and 
morbid conscientiousness, plus an active self- 
reliance that has already resulted in success- 
ful individual and concerted measures. In all 
these women, however, the wish for progress 
has made such havoc that the woman of to- 
day differs from the woman of the past. 

As Justification of this new departure it 
must be remembered that we are no longer 
living in an age marked by a dominant cause. 
Work, government, society, knowledge, phi- 
lanthropy, yearly grow more specialized, 
whilst our foremothers had above them their 
faith in the special providences of God, and 
around and below them a daily struggle for 
material needs. Life was grave and tender in 
these women, who felt that they were the 
founders of a new race. And just as they 
were beginning to realize that less praying 
and less manual labor would obtain their daily 



130 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

bread and make them heroic mothers of men 
whose motto was yet to be Renunciation, 
came the Revolution, to give tliem another 
unified impulse towards simplicity of life, 
dignity of thought, and trust in God. All 
women in these two periods thought and 
worked alike for the same reason. Subdivision 
in feminine interests was just creeping into 
slight notice, when our last war again united 
women in a single cause ; but the country 
had grown larger, and faith in public 
prayer, church-going, special providences, 
less. The material comforts of the last fifty 
years had disintegrated simplicity of life, 
and rendered possible a speedy arrival at 
modern complexity ; and there was rarely an 
ineffaceable stamp of dignity left on those who 
nobly had borne their part in hospital and 
field and sanitary work. North and South. 
Now thousands make temperance their holy 
cause, other thousands consider female suf- 
frage as such, and then the feminine hosts 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 13 1 

break up into companies of one or more hun- 
dreds each, all clamoring for their special 
hobby, cause, work. 

Such diversity of interests has some advan- 
tages, but it also prevents that directness and 
simplicity of aim which made our great-grand- 
mothers such devoted, honoring wives, and 
such mothers filled with the spirit of the Lord, 
and has reacted unfavorably, to a large extent, 
upon the home. Not only are the four ortho- 
dox kinds of Thanksgiving pies in groaning 
larders gone, not only has the sceptical feeling 
arisen that turkeys may be roasted and pump- 
kin pies eaten before the canonical November 
day, but the mother-spirit that stuffed the tur- 
key and strained the pumpkin is going, and a 
new theory arising, that husbands and children 
ought not to like pies, and that if perchance 
such taste is inherited, it must be supplanted 
by the notion that the wife and mother is made 
for something beyond catering to appetites un- 
content with plain apples and cheese for dessert. 



132 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

Men naturally care less for the home when 
the wife does not first render service unto it ; 
for, being married, it has become her duty, 
voluntarily assumed, but sanctioned by the 
State and sealed with marriage vows. Not 
long ago a man and woman, swinging each 
other's fingers, were wending their way to the 
altar, when a dispute arose as to which one 
should purchase the cooking-stove. '' You," 
quoth the man, " for you will do the cooking." 
'' Not so," said the woman. " 1 am not 
going to do all the cooking. *' The dispute 
waxed hot, and separation ensued. 

Not only are pies in the home decreasing, 
but affection for it is also on the wane, as the 
need of individuality within it becomes more 
definite. But few sons and daughters have yet 
learned to sweeten the necessary transit from 
their early submission to their parents to later 
equality with the father and mother, or to a still 
later guardianship of them, with reverence for 
the parental relation in itself. Women do 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 133 

not care for their home as they did ; it is no 
longer the focus of all their endeavors ; nor is 
the mother the involuntary nucleus about w^hich 
the adult children assemble. Daughters must 
have art studios outside of their home ; author- 
esses must have a study near by ; and aspirants 
to culture must attend classes or readings in 
some semi-public place. Professional women 
have found that, however dear the home is, 
they can exist without it. Many still remain 
at home, but ask, in their midnight musings, 
why it should be right for a man to accept 
that position which the woman, on account 
of her home, must refuse. The query itself 
could not have arisen half a century since. 
Many men refrain from marriage, fearing that 
the homes offered by them will not be the chief 
delight of the wife, who will be capable of 
finding pleasure and occupation in other ave- 
nues of interest. It may be a selfish and 
manlike feeling, yet it exists ; and after women 
have adjusted their position, men may read- 



134 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

just themselves to it. The simple fact is that 
women have found that they can have occupa- 
tion, respectability, and even dignity discon- 
nected from the home. The tendency is, that, 
in the discovery of this possibility, they are 
losing somev^hat of filial tenderness, of the 
loyalty of kinship, and of close, concentrated 
affection, and acquiring more of self-assertion 
and universal expansiveness. 

The day of religious diaries and confessions 
is past ; but a moral and intellectual self-con- 
sciousness remains, fostered by our system of 
education and public examination, w^hich is 
much to be deplored. Very few are free from 
it, for it is an indigenous product, and only by 
education can be altered into the educated un- 
consciousness of middle life, or stamped out by 
rare buoyancy of health and spirits. What 
was woman made ybi^ .^ was the former ques- 
tion ; and the quick answer came, For the glory 
of God and the solace of man. Now the 
question reads, as put by the teacher and so- 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 135 

clety, What is she made of^ The school -girl 
answers, So much per cent. ; the belle says, 
So much beauty of head and shoulders poised 
at such an angle, plus certain inflections of 
voice and grades of manner to friends and 
the jDopulace ; and the earnest "committee 
woman " answers. Of executive force, insight, 
and sensible views. They all know their pro- 
fessions and their wants ; some stifle the smile, 
lest it be unconventionally broad ; others repress 
their enthusiasm, lest it argue a lack of savoir 
faire; and those who apparently are natural 
know they are natural. It is all a knowing. 
They are not, perhaps, unhappy by result of 
unfavorable comparisons, because dignity com- 
pels acceptance of the inevitable ; but there is 
little of happy humility, and a great deal of in- 
dignant dignity in thought and manner. Our 
public schools, our seminaries or colleges, train 
the pupils to meet an audience ! No wonder 
that the managers of the Children's "Pinafore" 
found no timidity in its infantile performers. 



136 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

With this growth of modern internal inter- 
viewing has come a loss of grace. vStiffness 
and hardness of manner was a Puritan charac- 
teristic, after a time softening into grace of 
posture, slowness of gait. But now some 
walk forth on high heels, balancing their 
shoulders like scales ; others step squarely on 
broad soles, and lo ! the world knoweth there- 
of; others still are always in a hurry; grace is 
wanting in all. Go from the streets to the 
drawing-rooms ; how few move, look, or 
speak gracefully ! The slow dignity and the 
careless ease are alike mannered. Every one 
knows that every one else is looking. Self- 
consciousness, frivolity, and also earnestness 
are banishing graceful badinage, easy postures, 
lingering tones. A brilliant woman becomes 
satirical, with relapses into humor; the humor 
collapses into extravagant statements. Timid- 
ity or decision in a woman speaker or pre- 
sidcr recalls the fact that it is a woman 
who is before one ; her decision often appear- 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN 1 37 

ing like a heavy borrowed article. The 
charm of being, of simply being one's self, 
apart from having a " mission " or "views," 
is lost in the zeal with which women are seiz- 
ing upon the new fields of usefulness thrown 
open to them. 

Every one must be or want a definite 
something. Two instances may serve as il- 
lustrations. The wife of a literary man, her- 
self a writer, came to this country, and was 
dined and lunched. ' ' What does she want.? *' 
asked the earnest women. "Nothing!" was 
the indignant reply of her society friend. 
Again, a sculptor went back to Rome and 
told how he had called to see a certain lady 
because he liked her, when, on his third visit, 
she asked, welcoming him, " Is there any- 
thing I can do for you?" — " As if," he said, 
" a man could not see a Boston woman with- 
out her wishing to aid him. Can't they just 
be themselves, and let us like them, and not 
eternally have objects, views?" 



138 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

The value of existence is becoming the out- 
ward hete noir that is stamping itself on the 
face, voice, and gait of woman. Do some- 
thing, be of worth in yourself, form opinions, 
is the imperative mood in which the times 
address modern women, whose likenesses will 
be recognized at a future day by this dignity 
of " woman's-mission" look, — a gallery of 
photographed " causes." 

Instead of grace there has come in many 
women an affectation of mannishness, as is 
shown in hats, jackets, long strides, and a 
healthful swinging of the arms in walking. 
Ready-made clothing for women seems to 
have finished their emancipation from the 
role of women of the past ; for with a much 
lessened need of sewing has increased a read- 
iness to show a so-called superiority to attrac- 
tiveness, which as independence has certainly 
succeeded. 

More pronounced than any mannerisms is 
the difference in the goal of past and present 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 139 

ambition. Formerly, to be a good house- 
keeper, an anxious mother, an obedient wife, 
was the ne phis ultra of female endeavor, — 
to be all this for others^ sakes. Now it is to 
be more than one is for one's own sake. 
Knowledge is valued as an end rather than as 
a means. Of course there is much attainment 
of knowledge among women that is purely 
philanthropic ; but also there is a vast amount 
of culture that is purely selfish. Some have a 
provoking knack at using all their knowledge ; 
the politeness of others forbidding inquiry as 
to its date of acquirement. They willingly, 
seem more learned than they are. They 
" do " books as some travellers " do " Europe. 
They are dogmatic, and possess a certainty of 
conviction where others disagree, that is amus- 
ing and aggravating. I accept your premises, 
but doubt your conclusion, is a simple state- 
ment ; but it suggests memories of authorita- 
tiveness and slight philosophical acumen. 
Then, women quote, quote, quote, and say, 



140 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

" Don't you remember? " At a literary dinner 
this quotation had grown overpowering to a 
thoughtful friend of only moderate memory, 
and when repeatedly addressed with "Don't 
you know?" she said, apologetically, "Oh, I 
can only think ! " There was silence. 

A middle-aged girl generally knows more 
than her parents ; but not always as much as 
other people whom she has not yet had the 
discipline of meeting. This dogmatism is not 
so apt to show itself on special points as in the 
general way of regarding the universe, for the 
^ fact of being a product of this age confers the 
supposed intellectual power which hovers in 
the atmosphere. "To him that hath shall be 
given" is literally believed. "I can," instead 
of " I'll try," expresses much of modern feel- 
ing. The ability to make much out of little is 
not confined, however, to American women, 
and is in itself power. It is always more strik- 
ing to make a point than to see the whole of 
an idea, and answers better for the short de- 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN T41 

mands of society, not of life. Our grand- 
mothers would stand aghast at the aphorisms, 
quaintnesses, points, of the lady conversation- 
alist of to-day, and would miss the old-time 
calmness, fervor, and acceptance of life's 
duties. 

There is also an increasing tendency, in 
spite of fashionable and benevolent cookery 
schools, to disparage housework and sewing. 
Women hint to each other that they can use 
their time to greater advantage ; that they 
were born for something better, being of the 
educated classes ; and that manual labor is for 
the unintelligent. Then, when intelligence 
directs this mass of unlntelligence, it thinks 
it is doing a great deal, and often sighs 
pityingly over itself. Often from want of 
manual knowledge these educated housekeepers 
are compelled constantly to "change help" 
and have garments altered. It is doubtful 
whether there is the same patient endurance 
of the hard conditions of life now as even fifty 



142 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

years ago, while there is more intellectua. pre- 
tension. 

Advertisements, the higher intelligence 
offices, and bureaux of labor testify to the 
presumed value of brain over hand education, 
although the country is suffering for good 
handiwork of all kinds. Women who apply 
for situations want places as teachers, travel- 
ling companions, translators, copyists, jour- 
nalists, lecturers, and orators. One woman 
wanted some work of " renumerative benefi- 
cence, as the Almighty would be wroth with 
her if her powers remained unemplo3^ed ; yet 
she must gain her daily bread while awaiting 
the results of her pen." Another, clad in 
dowdy trimmings and frowsy feathers, brought 
an article "written in a few moments' leisure 
on the stairs, just thrown off" (she was tend- 
ing table till something better turned up), as 
proof of what she could do. A lover of her 
kind, but no thinker, wishes for j^'^^ying parlor 
audiences. Still another craves some larp^e 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 1 43 

hall, where she can discourse on " the — isn't 
sure what word to use ; something which 
shows that religion and science don't exactly 
contradict each other." Others have lectures 
on Icelandic and Persian mythology as known 
through encyclopedias, on the Visions to Be, 
on the Centripetal Force of all Systems of 
Philosophies, on Woman's Duties, Needs, and 
Missions. All have something to say, and 
all think they ought to be helped. Some one 
said that within the last two years a hundred 
applications had been made to her personally, 
all for work which required more or less 
exercise of brain-power ; and that not in a 
single case was there evidence that the appli- 
cant possessed more than the desire to be 
cultured, rather than culture itself. 

Eloquence is such a noble gift that it is sad 
to see so many women who have studied 
oratory, anatomically and physiologically, 
philosophically and psychologically, desire to 
make their living by readings and lectures ; if 



144 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

they do " orate " well it is often from art, not 
feeling ; they lack the impulse, for truth's sake 
to tell the truth, which alone constitutes elo- 
quence. As many women can speak nobly 
and well and with no thought of self, and as 
elocution is a most useful study, it is hard 
that others must speak and read merely be- 
cause it is a tendency of the age. 

Women are also in a transitional religious 
condition, partly because it is hard for them 
to unlearn the lessons of dependence, and 
partly from social fear, self-distrust, and 
religious reverence. As doubt and agnosti- 
cism are "evoluted" in both sexes, they do 
not belong here as special feminine develoi^- 
ments. Women, however, need beware lest 
the man, author or preacher, become their 
guide, rather than the truths he enunciates : a 
leader clogs as well as clears the road in 
thinking out a subject. 

A serious evil, arising from the greater 
information about everything which women 



THE TRANSITIONAL WOMAN. 145 

now possess, is a vast amount of superficial 
physiological knowledge based on feelings 
rather than on facts. Women often harm 
themselves thereby in body, soul, and mind. 
No one who is not a specialist can generalize 
on "feelings" or facts. 

As the result of this capacity of woman to 
exist for herself alone, and to be happy and 
worthy in such existence, comes a reluctance 
to look upon marriage as producing the 
highest development of woman. There is 
a pantheism of the affections as well as of the 
intellect, and women are feeling that "causes" 
and knowledge are better fitted to ennoble 
them than the ill adjustments of a union which 
is anything less than perfect love, entire trust, 
and mutual honor, — motherhood and disci- 
pline no longer being considered equivalents 
for the crosses that may arise. 

Woman's past condition has not been satis- 
factory to herself, nor is it wholly a matter of 
pleasant history for men. Because a few 



146 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

women already have proved that housekeeping 
and culture, energy and grace, executive force 
and affection, a profession and a home, can 
coincide, it does not follow^ that the fulfilment 
of certain tendencies v^ith many more w^omen 
is not imminent, and much to be regretted ; 
but just as fast as they become more pro- 
nounced must there be a reaction against 
them, which will eventually establish the 
balance between the women of the past and 
of the present. 




PERSONAL INFLUENCE 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 



'nr^HE relative position of men and women, 
it is generally conceded, furnishes data 
concerning the moral progress of a nation ; yet 
their relations to each other, and the duties in- 
volved in marriage, present unusual difficulties 
to be solved, because we are still ignorant con- 
cerning their extent. One generalization is 
immediately confronted by another, accusing 
the first of falsi t}^ and exaggeration ; individual 
experience is sure, but limited ; though no 
science and no method of general action can be 
based on private experience. 

Propriety itself has so long regulated the 
utterance of enthusiasm, knowledge, hope, 



150 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

endeavor, that almost any attempt toward 
expression of truth is sure to offend, unless 
couched in scientific terminology ; but noble 
propriety, founded on the relations of things 
and not on the conventionalities of society, de- 
mands that impropriety should be recognized, 
spoken of, branded and remanded, not to obliv- 
ion, but to the most earnest efforts of adult 
men and women for its cure. Evil lurks in 
" society," leads an open life " in the lower 
ranks," and constitutes the raison d'etre of 
many philanthropic schemes ; yet there is a 
terrible indifference to the subject, though 
annual reports, wretched newspaper stories, 
and the highest class of novels deal with it. 
To bring it into a work of fiction, unless the 
book has a distinct moral purpose, is both in- 
artistic and injurious, as familiarizing the mind 
with evil, the existence of which should only 
be dealt with under the plea of truth, duty, or 
benevolence. As most light reading is manu- 
factured for entertainment rather than for the 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 151 

development of such attributes, it should be 
freed from this incumbrance of evil in either an 
attractive, picturesque, or saddened aspect. 

Because of feigned or real indifference and 
the '' proprieties," wrong-doing is not fading 
away under the auspices of many wise and 
fashionable reforms. When moral law is de- 
clared to be more obligatory than instinct, and 
the reasons for such belief are deemed matter 
for serious inculcation, the populace demur and 
the educated and aesthetic enjoin silence even 
in the home. 

Cannot something more powerful than 
ever yet has been tried be brought to bear 
upon the eradication of evil? Must not that 
power be the weight of combined public 
opinion working in concert which shall de- 
mand that children be educated into knowledge 
of what is true ? Great stress is now laid upon 
the importance of a right intellectual element- 
ary education ; the morals of truth and energy 
are not neglected, but instruction in the special 



152 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

part of morality with which we are now con- 
cerned is overlooked in most homes where only 
it properly belongs. Neither this generation 
nor the next may witness any palpable im- 
provement from such teaching, but the children 
of those who themselves have been well taught 
could become unfamiliar with evil because 
accustomed to a higher morality. 

Also such thorough search into the causes 
of evil is demanded that, the causes being 
known, their annihilation may be effected. 
These causes have been divided into the 
" natural and accidental." Under the first are 
included peculiarities of disposition, like 
vanity, indolence, and grossness of character. 
Granted that these are peculiarities, perhaps 
even inherited ones, they are dependent on the 
will for cultivation or partial extermination, 
and upon the absorption of the individual in 
voluntary or compelled labor. The moral and 
intellectual tone affects the physique ; and full 
employment in one direction negatives undue 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 153 

occupation in another. Whatever strengthens 
the will-power or ennobles the character is an 
aid in the battle which the individual must 
fight for and by himself, — yet not wholly by 
himself; for the accidental causes foster the 
natural ones, and the help of the community 
is necessary in order to destroy the first. Only 
by universal action can successful war be 
waged against these accidental causes, and in 
proportion to the diminution of their number 
will the natural causes find a natural death. 
The accidental causes, on the other hand, are 
within the control of the community and of 
the individual ; and, though not capable of 
immediate government, they can be met with 
counter-arguments and checks till finally ad- 
justed or overthrown. 

Among these reasons the most potent one 
for the existence of evil is the difficulty of 
obtaining remunerative employment. There 
are thousands of women in and around New 
York who do not receive over two dollars a 



154 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

week, and the temptations induced by such 
wages are tremendous. It is starvation pay 
which drives hundreds into immoral Hfe. 
They may be wretched workwomen, but 
ahnost any Libor is worth more than two 
dollars a week ; and fuller pay would kindle 
ambition to produce better work. In all our 
large cities and towns the underbidding of 
wages is contemptible ; goods, whether in the 
raw material or as made up, pass through 
hand after hand, in the modern subdivision of 
life, until the last producer — generally a 
woman, living in an attic or cellar — can barely 
earn enough to pay for rent and one decent 
meal a day. The poorer she is the less in 
one sense are her needs, as ignorance and 
poverty create their own boundaries of want. 
But along the whole descent to her condition 
are others who cannot eke out the means for 
their necessary wants ; and, when we say we 
all have a right to life, liberty, and happiness, 
we forget how society constantly curtails the 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 55 

extent of the latter. With more happiness 
there would be less sin ; example and starva- 
tion often leading one to seek temporary refuge 
from despair and hunger. The poor are 
willing to work, and look upon it as their 
rightful lot ; but they claim that capital should 
be so adjusted in its relation to the laborer 
that even those who are farthest removed from 
wealth should receive enough of its benefits to 
prevent the agonized suffering of extreifie 
want. When that pressure is removed, they 
acknowledge that happiness, as their right, 
must depend upon their own powers of 
creation, endurance, or capacity for looking on 
the bright side of things. Many, among the 
immense number of women who vainly 
endeavor to support themselves by the needle, 
succumb at last to a temporary but easier 
method of livelihood, though despising them- 
selves for preferring the transient alleviations 
of food and warmth to the continued struggle 
for an honest life. There is no confession 



156 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

more touching, no contest more pathetic to 
witness, than that of some of these girls, born 
poor, living to be poorer, with no power to 
do well any one thing, even menial work, thus 
receiving wretched pay ; probably supporting 
some relative, or child, if left widowed or 
deserted, and at last giving up the fight for 
goodness, and yielding for preservation of self 
and of others. 

The cause of evil that ranks next to that of 
ill-paid remuneration for labor is that of intoxi- 
cation. Wrong-doing and love of drink are so 
inseparably connected that it is hard to distin- 
guish cause from effect. When the first step 
in evil has been taken for other reasons, this 
second cause reacts and intensifies the capacity 
for farther ill-doing. All grades of sin recog- 
nize the service that liquor renders them, and 
do not hesitate to apply its aid to their purposes. 

The overcrowded dwellings of the poor are 
the third cause. The proximity of parents and 
children, brothers and sisters and boarders, in 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 157 

one room, permits familiarity with phases of 
life that accustom children to regard them as 
proper normal conditions. Purity is often 
unknown, the brutality of a low nature is 
easily aroused, and children know and do 
what seems impossible. 

Certainly these three causes of evil are within 
the scope of human remedy. While science 
and political economy are puzzling over the 
formula of their methods of procedure, indi- 
vidual benevolence is endeavoring to find 
means of prevention in individual cases. 
These causes abound among the lowest ranks 
of sin, and call forth compassion equally with 
abhorrence. Removed from them, another 
range of life is met with, due to other circum- 
stances, though all these social circles of sin 
intermingle, and it is hard to say where one 
begins and another ends. This aristocracy 
among the erring is one of its most painful 
features, and yet often most touching in the 
unexpected kindnesses rendered by one of 



158 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

larger to one of smaller means. In this 
upper class of evil the chief factors of its 
existence are loneliness and indolence ; abso- 
lute want is not the exciting cause so much as 
absolute loneliness. Take the familiar case of a 
young girl who has come to the city, and has 
been fortunate enough to find work, but knows 
no one ; who comes from and goes to her shop 
alone, and passes her Sundays and her evenings 
in silence, — for, in spite of unions, and socie- 
ties, and churches, it is hard to make acquaint- 
ances ; some are too busy, others too tired, and 
many too awkward. ~ Finally, a stranger or 
friend appears, who enlivens the lonely hours, 
and the end is soon met : there is no need of 
following the downward course ; apparent 
friendliness takes possession of real loneliness. 
Weak and wrong in the woman ? Yes. But, 
again, this evil of loneliness is one that society 
and that other women are bound to correct. 
There should be no need for loneliness to 
accept such refuge, when so many thousands 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 59 

of women have homes and hearts, and when 
hundreds of women are working to protect 
just such girls ; but these hundreds are not 
enough. Every true woman should enlist in 
personal search for the friendless. When each 
holds another up then there will be no occa- 
sion for falling. Indolence presents a feature 
of character almost impossible to conquer. 
Persuasion seems useless ; there is no power to 
compel industry ; downright laziness prefers 
ease by any means, and accepts sin with its 
pleasures and pains as it has dawdled through 
all other occasions of life. Personal influence, 
extended where the rigor of the law cannot 
reach, is the only method of attack upon this 
nearly impassable front. 

Next to these two sources of evil can be 
ranked personal vanity, love of amusements, 
theatres, dancing, and a fondness for dress. 
All of them act as incentives, though to a 
regard for dress has been ascribed more 
force than it deserves ; it is really a minor 



i6o ABOUT PEOPLE. 

reason compared with the love of admiration 
that takes its root in loneliness. While at- 
tributing so much force to this one cause, 
loneliness, sin itself should not be rated one 
iota less ; but, because it is loneliness, the 
wrong of righteous humanity in allowing 
such friendliness to lie in wait all around 
one is unbounded. The unselfishness and re- 
spectability of home affection is very limited. 
For every woman w^ho tries to help others 
there are fifty who shrink back. 

There are also indirect causes arising from 
undue familiarity in company, in " society ; " 
from too free intercourse between men and 
women, girls and boys ; from too little observ- 
ance by the parents of young people's pur- 
suits, and from the exclusion of older persons 
from the good times of the younger ; from ill- 
regulated feeling ; and from unhappy marriages, 
— entered upon w^ithout forethought or mutual 
requirements, and often only as a shelter or an 
" establishment," — and from wretched pub- 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. l6l 

lications. The measures already undertaken 
for the- suppression of this last cause cannot 
reach the immense number of books admitted 
into family and public reading, stories written 
by men and women, of which the trashy, 
vulgar tales of newspapers stand at one extreme 
and a '^ Romance of the Nineteenth Century " 
at the other. Nothing but the general deepen- 
ing of morality and of purer literary taste will 
ever prevent the treatment of such subjects. It 
cannot be effected by force, only again by in- 
dividual watchfulness over one's self as writer 
or reader, and over one's acquaintances as far 
as personal influence may extend. 

The enumeration of these causes, which will 
doubtless be corrected or increased by the 
reader, is given simply to show that every one of 
them is such an accidental cause that society 
and humanity should in this day be ashamed 
of its existence. There is not one of them that 
cannot be slowly uprooted, if all are in ear- 
nest, and if there are homes whose inmates 



1 62 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

will all be equally anxious to help ; but anxious 
and loving parental fears or foolish prejudices 
or society's mandates damj^en enthusiasm. 
Personal influence is relegated to that of some 
special conference or church, and the evil 
lingers. Not by " homes," not by laws, not 
by societies, is the evil to be eradicated, though 
all are helps ; but by personal influence, which 
must find support in public opinion and in the 
tone of education, else it will not develop into 
sufficient strength to be of permanent value. 
Public opinion must begin by regarding the 
man as equal offender with the woman ; and, 
though the law must punish each equally, the 
castigation of society must be the powerful 
deterrent. When those who lack honesty 
and refinement find it impossible to be 
received into society ; when, by parents, 
the wealth, intellect, or position of suitors are 
considered as of no value compared with their 
morality ; when they are refused as partners in 
the dance, either in the fashionable assembly 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 163 

or the Irish picnic, — then will men feel that 
they are challenged to a loftier standard of 
action as requisition for friendship or marriage. 
We talk a great deal about the power of 
society, but are loath to exercise it. Society 
does already forbid innuendo of speech and 
open violation of conduct ; but it does not for- 
bid Platonic intimacies, and marriages in 
which there is little love and upon which lie 
the weight of prior claims. 

Much is now said about the importance of 
teaching morality in the public schools. Ad- 
visable as such instruction may there be, and 
though indirectly it may largely conduce to 
rectitude, it cannot include every phase of 
morals. The education that is given through 
the pulpit and the press must also be indirect ; 
but in the home, where the listeners and the 
pupils are one's own, the education should 
begin, and be so perfect that it needs never to be 
supplemented. It is in the home that it is so very 
largely neglected, — in homes, too, where all the 



164 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

aims and wishes are for the children's benefit. 
Direct instruction should be derived from none 
other than parent or guardian, and should be 
given to children as they grow, not waiting 
till an engagement of marriage takes place, the 
instruction then being connected with an indi- 
vidual. The law of birth constitutes one of 
the child's earliest subjects of inquiry, and 
should be truthfully, though not fully, an- 
swered in its earliest years. Then the child 
knows in words the true law, but its full sense 
it does not comprehend till later ; yet it does 
not start with a false term, and its progress 
from particular to general ideas is true, as its 
years increase its knowledge, which is thus 
planted deep in the mind, and ready for use 
when occasion demands. Parents who have 
had the bitter or sweet gift of experience 
should insist on early frankness. By such 
plain speaking, enforced by home example, 
and by such choice of language and such rev- 
erence of thoueht as shall make the child feel 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 165 

that the production of life is the holiest law of 
nature, it will be impossible for him to have 
lax notions of moralit}' in later life. 

A very slow method of reforming the world, 
it is acknowledged, but no slower in regard to 
this evil than when education is spoken of as 
the ultimate cure of pauperism. This intro- 
duction of special moral teaching into every 
family has, however, a closer connection with 
pauperism than at first appears. If children 
are taught to understand reverentially the laws 
of birth, they will soon jDerceive that the con- 
ditions of birth are to be harmonized with 
its environment, and that it is robbery of the 
resources of the State to produce children 
who shall be paupers or invalids. 

Such education should be given alike by the 
intelligent rich and poor, and is demanded by 
every feeling of chivalry and philanthropy ; 
here, again, the removal of evil becoming a 
personal conflict. 

Next to education, as the general deterrent 



1 66 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

of evil, comes the creation of new avenues of 
employment, and of sufficient wages for any 
work that is done. The growing belief that 
the word "education" includes training of the 
hand is the surest augury that industrial edu- 
cation is to become an immense force in the 
destruction of evil. But such teaching must 
not be wholly left to the care of the State. 
The Associated Charities in many cities are 
establishing closer personal relations between 
the rich and the poor. True friendship cares 
for the industrial education of the friendless, 
and will create a foundation for better wages. 
The preventive still becomes one of personality, 
though the help of the State and of associa- 
tions can be more prominent concerning indus- 
trial education than in regard to other means of 
prevention. 

Allusion' should also be made to the necessity 
of creating a healthier sentiment in the minds 
of the working-class in relation to household 
service. It is frequently looked upon as a 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 67 

disgrace, and personal liberty is supposed to 
be obtained by making working hours include 
only those of the daytime ; therefore, house- 
work is declined. A more just, rather than 
a kinder, spirit must pervade house-keepers. 
The recognition of the fact that they consider 
no work to be menial would establish better 
relations between the help and the family. 
Domestics must be allowed their right to 
personal peculiarities, and to a certain amount 
of time which shall be absolutely theirs, while 
an equality, rather than a condescension, of 
speech must be shown toward them. 

Finally, as preventive, removed from direct 
personal influence, comes legislation. Any 
offence that is criminal in the woman should 
be visited with an equal grade of punishment 
upon the man. Reformatory institutions have 
been and still are beneficial ; yet, when the 
influences of the "boarding-out" system are 
deemed better for the wards of the State than 
the associations of an institution, surely it may 



1 68 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

not be unwise to ask whether greater personal 
inspection of the nature of evil and increased 
personal watchfulness over the unfortunate 
may not aid in lessening more rapidly its ex- 
tent. Such oversight will recognize that 
there is as great a variety of temperament 
and character as there is of persons ; will go 
to them when their room is at zero ; when 
they have little food for days together, and in 
ninety cases out of a hundred are addicted 
to drink ; will find some tender spot in their 
nature ; will first improve their physi<:al con- 
dition, then procure them employment, and 
finally will endeavor to arouse their moral 
nature. It is to the application of the work- 
remedy that every one should contribute. 
We must be willing to receive them back into 
our employment because they need us. 

Surely, want of occupation, vanity, care- 
lessness of behavior, and temperamental pre- 
disposition, can better be controlled by the 
person than by the State. Rescue work within 



PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 169 

and without the home is an individual work 
rather than a pubHc missionary service. 

With a careful understanding of the causes 
and preventives of evil there is yet a future for 
those who help and who are to be helped ; and 
the " disinherited children," who now fill our 
asylums, crying for their unknown mothers, 
w^ll become themselves in turn parents who 
shall find honest work for honest pay. Slowly, 
imperceptibly, will any change be effected ; 
but, at a time when woman's position and 
duties are widening, the moral influence of the 
home is thereby extended, and on its teaching 
depends the morality of the world. Personal 
influence in the ball-room and the workshop, 
education of the young, whether poor or rich, 
and intelligent comprehension of other natures 
besides one's own, will aid in devising in- 
dividual measures for individual cases, until 
each sufferer finds strength to stand alone. 




WHO'S WHO 



WHO'S WHO? 



1VT0 question has more servile terror or 
^ ostracizing power than this inquiry. 
However desirable it may be before an 
intimacy Is formed, or copartnership in work 
undertaken, It has become imperative ere a 
nod of recognition is bestowed. Even If 
sudden philanthropy dictate the saving of a 
life, the hero and the spectators must know^ 
who has been saved. Cordiality changes Its 
universal blandness into warmth when ances- 
tors are well known. Not genealogical zeal 
or elderly kindness alone ask : Where does he 
belong? but fear of compromise raises the 
same query, and accompanies It with full 
notes. If we are to' be known by our friends, 



174 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

we care too often about who they are, rather 
than what they are. 

An Englishman once said he had heard 
more concerning first families in America than 
in his own country. Most naturally was it sf», 
for our peerage is ever changing. Lowell's 
poems and somebody's bitters may be adver- 
tised on the same page of the "Atlantic." 
"Family-trees" are no longer content with 
the "Mayflower" as a starting-point; but 
seek for social status in Saxon and Norman 
days, and trace their coat of arms to ante- 
diluvian fancies. Better an honest modern 
invention, like that of the New York million- 
naire, who, making his fortune by tobacco, 
chose for his insignia three tobacco leaves, 
with a Latin inscription, which, rendered into 
English, ran : — 

" Snuff has bought it; 

Who'd have thought it?" 

Select summer hotels afford the best exem- 
plifications of self-regard, for in them each one 



WHO'S WHO? 175 

feels that he pays for the Hberty of not doing 
anything which he does not want to do. An 
" arrival," whose bearing or whose name is 
not a passport of distinction, may pass unno- 
ticed for days or weeks, while a distinguee girl 
or man cannot walk the length of the piazza 
unremarked. Most curious are the sinuous 
turnings with which people who live in the same 
city ignore each other when in the same board- 
ing-house, for the inconvenience of acquaint- 
anceship on their return home would be much 
greater than that of any temporary avoidance. 
It is wonderful how quickly the desire for rest 
or meditation vanishes when some one arrives 
who is supposed to be worth knowing. Then 
social intercourse receives its full valuation. 
Those who are eagerly welcomed cannot 
understand the coolness and coldness of the 
world. Great men and women have little 
chance for judging society aright, for they find 
themselves sought, irrespective of antecedents, 
while average good people are left to realize 



176 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

by their own experience how much lineage 
adds to appreciation of good purpose. A 
high rate of board per day does not give 
absolution from daily politeness. It is ludi- 
crous to see the perplexity of some one who 
has paid a big weekly bill for being in, but 
not of, the crowd, when, suddenly, he dis- 
covers that he has missed a social opportunity. 
"Blue blood" cannot mingle with anything 
less cerulean ; next to belonging to " a family," 
ranks belonging to the church. A Radical, a 
Unitarian, a Methodist, a Baptist, is each one 
degree farther removed than the preceding 
from the high recognition of society. 

Some 2:>eople are so afraid of being involved 
that they miss the evolution of themselves. 
Cosmopolitan or provincial behavior in a hotel 
is after all each one's own affair, but when the 
latter extends to the personal relation of a guest 
to his host it becomes reprehensible. If one is 
not willing to enlarge his acquaintance he had 
better never enter society ; but, being there, he 



WHO'S WHO? 177 

should be the servant of all, especially of his 
entertainer. Introductions are too frequently 
matters of diplomacy rather than of good-will, 
and often are refused, if it is only the conven- 
ience of the host which is to be furthered 
thereby. As they are still required, it becomes 
difficult to manage a party ; those invited being 
often preengaged to each other for a conver- 
sation or a dance, so that there is no chance 
for the forced opportunities of presentations. 
Few people are old or free enough to speak to 
each other without the mediation of a third 
person. A most amusing instance .of the 
consequence of such fearlessness was a scene 
between an elderly and middle-aged lady in a 
crowded supper-room on Beacon street. The 
younger one had eaten her salad and ices in 
unbroken silence ; so had the elderly woman. 
At last the first ventured to remark that, as 
the room was very hot, the ice was refreshing. 
''Yes," was the long-drawn reply, coupled 
with the words, " Have I met you before? " 



I'jS ABOUT PEOPLE. 

" No," was the amused answer, " and per- 
haps we may never meet again ; but I hoped 
I might take the liberty of speaking to you 
now." 

" Yes. I am Mrs. B., of D avenue. And 
you.?" 

" I am Miss W., of X street." 
' ' Ah ! indeed ! The ice is cooling." 
And the older lady, satisfied that the person's 
name and address had a familiar and correct 
sound to her ears, slowly drifted into a conver- 
sation which was more congealing than the 
ice. 

When fame, however, heralds the advent of 
a stranger, invitations to behold and speak to 
him are eagerly accepted, clubs and social par- 
ties vying with each other in speeches and 
oysters. But, alas ! if one is simply a lady or 
a gentleman from another city, or a side street 
of one's own town ! Self-consciousness gener- 
ally rebels at being invited for benevolent 
reasons, and few have the courage of a cei'tain 



WHO'S WHO? 179 

woman at a notable assembly, who, on being 
asked why she was present, replied: "I am 
next-door neighbor." But, as at most recep- 
tions one meets people like one's self, and as 
at least one-third of the world is plain and 
awkward, would it not be well to insist on a 
forced growth of conscience, which should 
deter a young man from using his eye-glass to 
examine a young lady before he is introduced 
to her ; and which should compel a young 
lady to instantly draw the unwilling victim 
into conversation ? It is time for hostesses and 
patronesses to insist on their rights if guests 
have become the law-givers, and decline all 
introductions except those they desire. Some 
people cannot accept an invitation without 
bringing their personal caprices with them. 
Many elderly young men decline an introduc- 
tion, as they " already have such an extensive 
circle." One such individual was asked to be 
presented to a lady who was sitting alone. 
He eyed her thoroughly, and declined. He 



I So ABOUT PEOPLE. 

returned half an hour later, saying: "I'll be 
introduced to her now. I see several of the 
men have been talking to her. Her profile is 
not bad." "No," replied the lady. "When 
I asked you because she was my friend, you 
declined. Now I decline to present you." 

One of Boston's oldest families gave a recep- 
tion. Two scions of other old families at- 
tended, to whom the host said : " I'll introduce 
you to those ladies opposite," and he moved 
towards them. "Excuse us," said one of the 
men; "the ladies are of a peasant style of 
beauty ; it is hardly worth while." The host 
bowed low in recognition of their far-seeing 
power, adding: "Yes, they are my nieces 
from the country, but I will not trouble you." 
No apology would he receive, though one was 
eagerly offered. The old gentleman was right ; 
he wished to vindicate the honor of his house. 

No one has any right to accept even the 
most general hospitality unless he accede to 
reasonable demands, but the fear that a young 



WHO'S WHO? i8i 

man may not come again excites such mortal 
terror that he is allowed to do as he pleases, 
which means to seek the attractive girls. 
Then, as every woman has a number of friends 
as guests who are only delightful when known, 
she is obliged to seem unaware of their value 
because so many men decline introductions. 
The society phrase is, "I thank you ; I see so 
many here whom I know that I will not 
trouble you ; " and if the hostess persists, then 

is added, " Thanks, I'll speak to Miss , and 

come back to you." Woe to her if her per- 
sistency continues, for then must she go after 
the young man ; he will never return to her. 
The preponderance of women over men in 
every party is an evil which can only be 
remedied by the general dispersion of the men 
among the long trains of the ladies. In 
crowded receptions introductions by the host- 
ess are impossible ; the value of such parties 
consists in their being a full bill of discharge 
of social duties, at so much cost a plate or a 



1 82 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

head. It is no more complimentary to one's 
vanity to be invited to such crowds, merely to 
be lost in them, than it is to be invited to a 
family dinner because the hostess does not 
know exactly whom to ask to meet you. 

The naivete of one's guests is sometimes very 
amusing. They think one is semi-literary, 
and that they shall meet such persons, and 
they come and find real-estate men and whole- 
sale dealers in leather, or they go especially to 
meet the boot and shoe trade and find an 
essayist and a historian. They fancy their 
entertainer is homoeopathic, and find both old 
and new schools present. They consider one 
as pious, and the Sunday paper tells them that 
piety has had a dance and an elegant supper. 
It is considered odd when extremes meet in 
private houses, though it is taken as a matter 
of course when they come together on politi- 
cal occasions. 

A plain lady living in an unfashionable 
street invited a gentleman of leisurely life 



WHO'S WHO? 183 

to her home, because in her simpHcIty she 
thought he seemed lonely, though he only 
suffered from aestheticism. He came, and 
at the close of the evening observed to her : 
" I had no idea that I should meet so many 
distinguished people at your house," his 
voice unconsciously emphasizing the pronoun. 
Such a remark stands in striking contrast 
to that of Dr. Holmes, vs^ho said to his host- 
ess : " Make use of me in any w^ay I can 
help you most." That w^as high-bred cour- 
tesy ; he came to serve her and make others 
happy. If each v/ould believe, as simply 
as did the Doctor, that such ability w^as 
more or less in each one's power, hov/ agree- 
able society would become, and how happy 
would all be ! But people torment themselves 
by thinking that they have neither use nor 
beauty, therefore they stand in corners look- 
ing suspicious or bored. Young men can 
depart from a room when the pressure of 
average persons upon them becomes too 



184 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

great, but girls must wait until the hour 
when carriages are ordered, and patiently 
endure the experience of never being sought. 
They are wall-flowers, and as such must 
cultivate self-respect and remember that if 
they do not delight a young man's fancy, 
they yet are beloved in their homes. Of 
course there is fault all round ; wall-flowers 
are to blame for being wall-flowers ; a belle 
cannot appreciate the situation ; it is better to 
go to cooking-schools and to read at Old 
Ladies' Homes, than to submit to being 
snubbed in society. If the wall-flower ele- 
ment is inborn it makes no matter how 
many elegant parties a girl may give, at the 
next German she may not be taken out, even 
once, by any of the young men who have 
drank her wine and fed on her boned turkey. 
It was not so a few years ago. Then the 
fact that one had given a party was full 
indemnification for being a wall-flower, and 
invitations to dance were certain for at least 



WHO'S WHO? 185 

half the season. Now, " there is quite as 
much humiliation as fun about society." 

A young girl, burdened with awkwardness, 
yet with capacity for gentle resentment, over- 
heard a young man ask another to be pre- 
sented to her. The latter hesitated, inspected 
her, and at last condescended to consent, say- 
ing : "Well, trot her out." The crowd, passing 
by, separated, and he was led up to her and 
their names were exchanged. She coolly sur- 
veyed him from head to foot, while he tried to 
find something to say, for her examination 
checked his ordinary volubility. After a 
moment or two, she turned to the gentleman 
who had brought him to her and said: "I 
have seen enough, trot him back." And back 
he went, with flushed face and dejected mien. 

It would be well for wall-flowers to organize 
for self-protection. Toy watches might be en- 
grafted on bracelets, and then, with one eye on 
the minute hand, and the other on her partner, 
the young lady could tell when time is up, and 



1 86 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

dismiss her three-minute chevalier with a 
knowing glance. There is as much fault to be 
found with grateful girls as with rude men ; 
but the girls are grateful from humility and the 
men rude from selfishness. 

The law of supply and demand obtains in 
society as well as in trade. If one is a wall- 
flower by necessity of her nature she cannot 
win the laurels of belleship ; but if she is re- 
fused them because her father is neither the 
president of a bank nor a professional man 
the ^withholding of them is contemptible. A. 
belle, in full possession of her faculties, can 
hold her court wherever she may be, in spite 
of inheritances of quack medicines, patents on 
domestic inventions, and Bonanza mines, ex- 
cept in the charmed circle of first families. 
Maryland has its Eastern Shore, Philadelphia 
its Walnut street, New York its Fifth avenue, 
and Boston the small radius on the north side 
of Commonwealth avenue, and the northern 
end of its first four or five streets crossing the 



WHO'S WHO? 187 

avenue. Within these and like sacred pre- 
cincts elsewhere, the answer to the question, 
Who's who? must be given before entrance is 
permitted. Once within them one would 
doubt if society existed elsewhere. 

A matter-of-fact damsel asked a bright, 
jolly girl who danced every night, if she were 
not tired of going so much into society. 
" Why," she replied, " I can't do that, I only 
go to parties." Are all the people worth 
knowing or marrying limited to a certain set? 
A rag-picker who carried her rags on her 
back congratulated herself on the marriage 
of her daughter to a man who carried his rags 
in a hand-cart. 

There is no single feature of American 
uppishness which gives more occasion for 
alarm than this desire to move in upper 
circles. It destroys simplicity, underrates 
home life, makes us look down on average 
people and value opinion as an expression of 
some special person rather than as of worth 



1 88 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

in itself. There is as much wit spoken around 
the table laden with crockery as at that shining 
with silver ; as much logical reasoning, 
humble scientific research and reverence, out of 
society as in it. Three-story brick residents 
can discuss books as well as people. There 
are two facts ever to be remembered regard- 
ing society : first, that it exists everywhere ; 
or that there is society out of society ; 
secondly, that there is a foolish ambition 
everywhere, which, rightly termed, is dis- 
contented snobbishness. At a certain semi- 
snobbish dead-in-earnest-to-succeed literary 
set, the absence of well-known writers was 
conspicuous, while the impressiveness of rising 
talent was oppressive. " Is every one here 
a professor?" was asked. "Professors or 
professions/^ who will soon be recognized as 
creating Boston thought," was the reply. 
Such self-content is really better, happier, than 
distrusting aping of another. Each circle has 
its own public, and yet the circles intermingle. 



iviias WHO? 189 

Snobbishness is not confined to one set 
of people. Emphasized by fashion or lit- 
erary pretensions it spreads from village to 
city. It exists in sardine factories and in 
palatial mansions ; it is met with at picnics 
and dances as well as at dinner or conversa- 
tion parties. The links are close. 

When a society young man ventures to 
marry a non-society girl enough comments 
are made to furnish Miss Braddon with mate- 
rial for a new novel. Is not a Jady a lady 
anyway, whether in public or in private life, 
whether a school-teacher or a book-keeper, or 
living in a secluded street? And yet, if she 
marries up in the world, how fortunate she is 
considered ! Simple, lovely, intelligent young 
women, respectful, upright young men still 
exist, and make the delight of home and 
society, as do the few chivalric individuals 
who will talk to lonely girls at parties for 
more than an hour rather than leave them 
alone, the latter in their humility never fancy- 



190 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

ing that they mean to offer themselves to-mor- 
row. 

Amidst the comfortable old families, who 
were merely born and have never risen nor 
fallen, a quiet laugh circulates when people 
like circus-dancers desire to leap through one 
paper circle to another, forgetting the debris 
they leave behind. Hundreds of persons are 
fortunately so far advanced that they believe a 
home is "good form." Society belles often 
marry ministers, in their efforts to embrace 
noble ideals. vSo there is reason to believe 
that true values will at last be estimated aright. 
Where there is real kindness and tact both 
men and women are less mindful of their 
social position. Agreeableness, whether in 
artist, editor, wholesale jobber and clerk, will 
make its own way, and mere exclusiveness on 
the score of pedigree, must, in time, yield to 
those who have a full mind, a noble heart, and 
a kindly wit. 

It is said that those who are sure of the 



WHO'S WHO? 191 

purity of their ancestral line are always gra- 
cious. Great is the charm of the high-bred 
air, the delicate features, and the clear tones of 
voice of one of long and high descent. Such 
distinction holds in age as in youth, in the 
wearer of black alpaca, and in her who is 
clothed with maroon velvet. But it is the 
certainty of a righteous cause which should 
create self-respect, and the consciousness of 
noble purpose in others which should make 
one forgetful of their ancestry. Yet by our 
manners are we first and most often judged. 
Frequently there is not time, or it seems like 
presumption, or it is an impossibility to try 
and know another ; but our manners, like 
the markings and outlines of diatoms, will 
determine to what species and genera we 
belong. The high-bred air and the free and 
easy w^ay testify of birth, the peculiar style 
of each person making the mould for the 
next generation. On his own material must 
each one work, and not accept his inheritance 



192 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

as an unchangeable quantity. In spite of 
effort to be unlike any but one's self, lineaore 
creeps through the Puritan conscience ; and 
energy, though softened, still lingers in many a 
rough reflexion of kindness, or in unnecessary 
activity of speech. 

Manners should exist as a growth of their 
own, for they are needed long before complete 
development of the nature is attained. The 
foundation of the different varieties of good 
manners is the same, for "fine manners are 
the mantle of fine minds," says an old prov- 
erb. They must be established on simple, 
sincere purposes, else their polish will soon 
vanish. Affectation of every sort destroys its 
own intent. Any attempt at greatness of 
thought, extensive reading, or forced wit, 
which is not true, is a form of hypocrisy. 

Yet it will not answer to be merely natural, 
for that often means having a rough, ungrace- 
ful exterior, though a kindly heart. Only 
polished saints can afford to always act as they 



WHO'S WHO? 193 

feel. Enough personal attention should be 
given to manners to enable one to see his 
faults, but not his good points. If there is a 
strong desire to make everybody happier, if the 
beauty and joy of life are felt, feelings will 
naturally express themselves in manners that 
will be agents of peace, mirth, and comfort. 
They must be trained, however, by the old- 
fashioned means of attention to the carriage of 
the body ; by the posture in sitting ; by looking 
attentive when listening or pretending to 
listen ; by bowing at the right degree of 
inclination, which should be neither a sweep- 
ing curve nor a right angle with eyes cast on 
the ground ; and by regard to commas, 
periods, and tones of voice in conversation. 
Before a man has spoken he is involuntarily 
judged by his motions, then by modulations 
of his voice, next by his language, and lastly 
by his sense. 

Manners, involuntarily, have some predomi- 
nant mark. Through them is felt, at once, in 



194 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

some people, the power of noble command, of 
a self-poised, thinking being who can rightfully 
assume leadership. In others there is an 
exquisite grace which moulds strength into 
forms of beauty, that is found in j^ersons who 
have an instinctive sense of proportion. 
Again, in others there is a pathos that recalls 
the tenderest part of one's experiences. The 
manners of a well educated circle are like a 
symphony, in which one takes the Andante.^ 
another the Adagio.^ and still another the 
Allegretto movement ; each has its own 
charm, and the whole fills the observer with a 
sense of delicious being, with a feeling of con- 
solation and exaltation. 

The self-control that puts aside its own pref- 
erences and seems pleased, is not hypocrisy; 
it is the exchangeable silver coin of society, 
without which intercourse would become rough 
and snappish. It is not sufficient to stop at 
being good ; advance must be made to fine 
manners. Nor need one be afraid of being too 



WHO'S WHO? 195 

earnest or impassioned, for such characteristics 
are consistent with courtesy. What eloquence 
is in power to a man manners are to a 
woman. They must often be started on 
adventitious means, as when the conscious- 
ness of much soft ruffling round the neck helps 
in turning the head more gracefully. The art of 
never showing haste is one method of cultivat- 
ing an outward, physical grace. Opportuni- 
ties of saying kind, true words to friends 
should not be missed ; admiration of people 
often leads to vmconscious copying of their 
manners, the imitation fitting so well that it 
becomes rightful ownership. Even when old, 
and tired, and sad, the charm of pleasant 
manners cannot be destroyed, for all sense of 
self, or of endeavor to be brilliant, has been 
lost in the constant desire to draw out the good 
and bright in others. Sympathy, tact, ear- 
nestness, appreciation, cheerfulness, — a sense 
of humor, if possible, — grace of motion and 
speech, make good manners. They are as a 



196 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

halo surrounding the real person whose char- 
acter still keeps its integrity. 

Because, in the complexity of life, we forget 
that each should be a unit, working as best he 
can, that what he does and what he thinks and 
what he is, embraces all with which another is 
concerned, is it constantly asked. Who's who? 
The subtle influences of pure and high birth 
are never to be scorned, for they intrench their 
possessor within a stronghold which makes it 
easy for him to bear the assaults of fortune or 
the rudeness of men. The high-bred faces 
win our aflection, the noble manner commands 
our obedience ; but with refinement must go 
strength, else the first is insipid. No inheri- 
tance is ever a compensation for the want of 
self-activity. Humanity has as many insignia 
as there are noble individuals. A person who 
is only so much of himself, multiplied by imi- 
tation of others, minus somebody else, is a 
wearisome sum in human arithmetic. Truth 
and sympathy lie at the basis of all fine manner, 



WHO'S WHO? 197 

and when these exist the horny hand of the 
farmer and the gentle pahn of the aristocrat 
can meet in cordial grasp of inward equality. 

It is snobbish, aggressive, and zealous to 
envy the well-born, or to speak- disparagingly 
of another's useful qualities because his man- 
ners are delightful. Knowledge of who's who 
marks the careful observer ; recognition of 
work, the honest judge. After the first ques- 
tion of " Where does he belong?" is answered 
by glancing down the vistas of inheritance, 
comes another, What is he in himself? On 
that reply alone depends fellowship. Let 
American aping of others and social fear never 
forget to profit by learning the lesson of regard 
for all that is noble, in answer to these inqui- 
ries. Let American independence and morality 
transfer what it values into its own possession, 
so that it may bless others with the warmth 
of human sympathy, and of earnest purity of 
purpose. Purpose makes manner ; the reflected 
light of manner shines again on purpose, and 
makes intensity radiant with beauty. 




CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 



^3^^ 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 



OOCIETY in America is not an entity. It 
^^-^ is rather the reflection of the mood of the 
individual who is contemplating it, the incar- 
nation of certain tastes, and has neither locality 
nor measurement. For some it possesses elas- 
ticity, for others immobility ; all desire to enter 
where many have disappeared in an apotheosis 
of self-laudation, and when there, find that 
their circle is not society, which is ever be- 
yond and ever narrowing. 

One lady, a leader of Boston fashion, stated 
that, though "society" consisted of about 
twentj^-five families, yet in the invitations to a 
general ball it might be safe to include from 



202 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

four to six hundred persons. Society, though 
not existing fei' se^ is deified as a goddess ; its 
decrees are passports, or edicts, of social banish- 
ment and death ; a knowledge of its laws is 
the preliminary, and obedience to them the 
final, requisite for admission. There is no 
New England, no New York, no Western 
society ; there was Southern society, founded 
on inheritance of name, on ownership of land 
and slaves ; but so long as there are annual 
governmental changes in the body politic, and 
constant reverses of private fortune through 
the money-markets and opportunities for Bo- 
nanza stock, and the advantages of high-school 
in the East and of college education in the 
West are ofiered free to all, there never can 
be a dominant force, — society. 

Manner conquers society sooner than wealth 
or education ; an individual is relegated to his 
proper social sphere, in the minds of all specta- 
tors, as soon as he enters a room. The depth 
of his bow, the tones of his voice, and the 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 203 

breadth of his smile have averaged him. Man- 
ner, however, is constantly reinforced by 
mind, and the republican mind is one of 
growth. The absurdity of American social 
life is to talk of entering society ; for, as soon as 
an American tries to bring society into focus 
to be interviewed, it divides itself into 
numerous facets of prismatic brilliancy. As 
a protest against any attempt to define society 
stands Mrs. Whitney's " We Girls ;" in which 
some girl invites some one " next " to her, and 
that next some one next in turn to her, till 
finally the whole village is related in a com- 
munity of interests. 

This constant enlargement of a social sphere, 
or the infinite subdivisions of acquaintanceship, 
prevents society (granted for the moment that 
such an entity exists) from being an unified 
power for evil or good ; while, because there is 
no such thing as society in itself, but circles of 
individuals combining for social purposes, 
these circles represent the social and educa- 



204 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

tional force of life in its less specialized aspects. 
The absence of any one social power is the 
safety-valve of American life ; and any person 
who has been so unfortunate as to have 
lived, moved, and had his social being in only- 
one set becomes thoroughly provincial. 

The power of society as a unit reached its 
fullest exemplification in the days of the early 
French salons. The salon was to Paris what 
the newspapers and monthlies now are to us. 
Then the salon made public opinion, and 
literary criticism was a matter of experience 
and reflection. Even now the French critic 
imbibes the mental atmosphere of his equals, 
and thinks and weighs before he writes ; whilst 
many of our critics go tired from the theatre, 
lecture, or concert to the newspaper ofiice, to 
have put in type their fresh opinions, — per- 
haps slightly tinged by the headache or 
their somnolent condition, — which the 
public next morning adopt as the general way 
of right thinking ; forgetting that a critic is 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 205 

one person, after all, and that the impressions 
of an evening or of quick reading are less 
valuable than the criticisms of lengthier obser- 
vation and reflection. Our critics are able, 
and honest and true, as far as in their power 
lies, but under the necessity of daily produc- 
tion, which must injure original quality and 
expression ; yet they exercise upon the public 
the formative power of the old salon, and 
render null any necessity for its existence. 

The second reason for the absence of salons 
lies in the non-existence of any one circle of 
people who, by virtue of inheritance, actual 
deed, or promissory note, can definitely 
establish their own social boundaries. Ameri- 
can life is too busy for definition ; men are too 
tired, women too anxious, to feel the delight 
of constant recreation through conversation 
at one another's firesides. We are all so 
willing to be hospitable by the blazing 
warmth on our own purchased or ancestral 
andirons, that there are few who go out for 



2o6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

others' entertainment. We are all at home — 
to nobody. Moreover, in a salon half the 
world were eager listeners, forgetful of them- 
selves ; but now we all must talk to prove our 
position, express ourselves to show that we 
have mind, or else look wise, hoping to realize, 
by the swelling on our brows, the growth of 
the thought within. 

American society is an anomaly which must 
puzzle all those who do not believe in it ; who 
do not see that its varying centres are but 
eddies on the surface of the fixed conviction 
that one man is the equivalent of another in 
capacity, and that his failure to prove it by 
results is the consequence of circumstances 
beyond his individual control. It is this belief 
which constitutes the essence of American 
impudence, boasting, aggressiveness, want of 
grace, and knock-you-down manner. It is 
also the source of our sturdy independence, 
our valuation of character as the final esti- 
mate, our reliance upon the common-sense 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 207 

of our enemy, rather than upon the ghttering 
g-eneralities and evasions of our friends. As 
soon as the social variations are perceived 
we become conscious that caste rules in Amer- 
ican life with an iron rod, tempered only by 
the fiery furnace of much wealth or rare 
intellectual ability. The lower we descend 
in what is called social life the more percep- 
tible become its demarkations. In the work- 
ing-classes, its sway is omnipotent. A 
marriage between a laundry maid and a 
washerwoman's son is contrary to all the 
rules of propriety, and ends in family feuds. 
The regular visitant at hotel cupboards 
who receives pie is farther removed from the 
tattered mendicant at backdoors than a mem- 
ber of the diplomatic corps from a native of 
Washington. In a certain well-known alley 
resided a shrewd brother and sister of twelve 
and fourteen, who assigned to each of the 
other dwellers his proper place in the social 
status of the by-way, imposing upon them 



2o8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

corresponding sumptuary laws of their own 
devising. These little magnates stayed at 
home and sent their agents begging ; all food 
obtained was delivered into their keeping, and 
then portioned out, as the Educational Bureau 
would say, not according to the " illiteracy of 
each section, but according to its geographical 
area." Shapeless pieces of bread and cold 
flapjacks were for the tenants of cellars and 
attics ; mufiins and tidbits of croquettes were 
for those who occupied the ground-floor and 
middle stories of the tenements. 

Among the working-women is a feeling 
of exclusiveness most noticeable, while with 
working-men it is no more j)rominent than 
with professional men. "It is this spirit of 
caste," says a working-woman of fifty years, 
" which keeps us all down. If w^e could 
nag one another it would be some gain ; but 
we avoid one another instead. There is no 
union among us, never was, except for a 
little while through the French International 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 209 

Association, which has died out. We never 
can raise ourselves from the bondage of ill- 
paid labor till we combine, and most of us 
would rather starve to death than associate 
with those beneath us." Another one com- 
plains that " the skilled workwomen pride 
themselves too much upon their skill to be 
willing to pull up the unskilled ; just as in 
the professions a good lawyer or physician 
will not take a poor partner. It is social 
ambition, caste, that rules us ; it begins with 
us, and goes up and up to kings and emper- 
ors. A woman with many servants despises 
her with one ; and she with one despises the 
woman who does her own work ; and she 
who does her own work looks down upon 
her who goes out to work ; and the one who 
goes out to do special housework scorns the 
scrub-woman, who is the end of woman- 
kind." 

Many of these people feel that the higher 
grades of labor can be protected only by 



2IO ABOUT PEOPLE. 

recognition of social lines, and talk of "the 
laziness and ignorance of the lower class of 
working-women." Even when out of em- 
ployment, or, perhaps, engaged in some 
" uncongenial occupation as a temporary 
makeshift," they still feel keenly that they 
"belong elsewhere." "An honest working- 
woman," said one of them, " whether of the 
upper or lower grades of labor, holds her- 
self infinitely superior to the trashy, flashy 
sort. We may not get work, but we can go 
from work to poverty, from poverty to ex- 
haustion, from exhaustion to death, but not 
to sin, — those who follow that are a different 
class, with which we have nothing to do." 

In a conversation with several of them it 
was asked: "What is the real grievance of 
the working- women ?" And the general answer 
was that it was due to the spirit of caste, 
which prevented combination and coopera- 
tion, the two agents that could lighten the 
burdens of ill-paid labor ; yet they had suffi- 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 211 

cient intelligence to see that social union 
among themselves must first be effected. The 
stern self-restraint, the power of self-sacrifice, 
the delicacy of taste, refinement of feeling, 
appreciation of knowledge, and acts of touch- 
ing kindness to one another, that are found 
among hundreds of them, do not negative the 
statement that the social line, based on kinds 
of labor, is closely drawn among them. 

" Kindness based upon equality ! " exclaimed 
one woman. " No, it is kindness based on 
caste. It is Arlington street and Fifth avenue 
that make the North End and the Battery. 
Employers don't care for employes. If a firm 
give their girls parlors, lunch or sleeping- 
rooms, it isn't because they care, but because 
they can get more out of us if we are comforta- 
ble. Your republican government doesn't do 
away with caste ; it is the population to a 
square foot that makes poverty, and according 
to the laws of caste it is only for the poor to 
emigrate. Did you ever hear of a rich man 



212 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

emigrating to make room for others? He 
squats forever, and it isn't called squatting. 
Talk of emigration and agriculture to factory 
and city folks, who have neither money nor 
health to emigrate ! We working-people don't 
envy 3"ou your pie or your pictures, if we can 
have bread. It is the deeper thing which 
makes us indignant : it is being called fools 
and simpletons by our employers, and bearing 
it, because we must have the one dollar. 
Labor is owned, and women are owned more 
than men, and will be until they can dare to 
combine and dare to refuse offers of ill-paid 
work, larded with harsh words and lunch 
privileges." 

Is there rank, then, in all industrial pur- 
suits? A tailoress declares that "Nowhere 
are the lines of caste more strictly drawn than 
among tailoresses and sewing-girls." Those on 
"custom-work" and those on "sale-work" 
need not necessarily know each other. Here 
is a classification given by one who under- 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 213 

stands, works, and aids others in various ways : 
" Employments of working-people are either 
subjective or objective ; one cannot consort 
with another. Under the first are included 
(i) the stenographer, (2) the newspaper hack, 
(3) the type-writer, (4) those engaged in life- 
insurance business and in any sort of nursing ; 
the second division embraces (i) mercantile 
women, (2) saleswomen, (3) tradeswomen, 
and (4) servants, who are Pariahs, so to speak, 
in the eyes of all other working-women." 

These words plainly indicate wherein lies the 
difficulty of obtaining good domestic service. 
There is a certain loss of personal indepen- 
dence as to hours and meals, but housework 
ranks lowest in the scale of honest labor ; am- 
bition, uppishness, or aspiration, is of national 
growth. The proof-reader by universal testi- 
mony ranks highest in the scale of laborers ; for 
good proof-reading requires not only an excel- 
lent elementary education, but also an intuitive 
mind. A copy-holder often advances to be a 



214 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

proof-reader ; whereas a type-setter seldom or 
never becomes a copy-holder. The most 
amusing instance of drawing the line is seen 
in the superbly quiet manner in which the 
"ladies" behind the counters of large dry-goods 
establishments regard the " women" in thread- 
and-needle stores ; and these in turn look down 
upon the "girls" employed in confectioners' 
shops, and the lower kind of om7iium-gath- 
erum stores always to be found in the neigh- 
borhoods of the poor. They all may stand 
upon their feet throughout the day and sell 
goods ; but that is all they have in common, 
except through incidental charitableness. 
Again, newspaper-work ranges from that of 
the regularly paid "contributor" on certain 
subjects, to that of the person with the ready 
wit to puff up patent medicines or do a job in 
twenty minutes. 

In talking with the thoughtful working- 
woman one is struck by the philosophical 
terms, — obtained through processes of imitation 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 215 

and by imbibing mental atmospheres, — which 
spring as readily to her lips as do the words 
"feeling," "tone," "values," to those of 
writers on art. Such women analyze life, lay 
down propositions, premises, and reason from 
them. Very often their foundation is weak. 
One of them, whose analysis of the mental 
requisites for different kinds of labor was very 
keen, observed: "There are sensuous and 
super-sensuous classes. The super- sensuous 
care less about the technique of their work, 
and fail in execution, but they are capable of 
improvement, if lofty motives are appealed to, 
and are ready to encourage stumblers. They 
long to be all they feel, and their lives are full 
of striving and failures. The sensuous could 
be represented by those girls who don't know, 
and don't know that they don't know ; they are 
honest and virtuous, but their tastes are on a 
low plane." 

The working-women are struggling against 
the identical limitations within themselves 



2l6 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

which philanthropists and believers in social 
cooperation and those of notable good-will in 
churches have always felt. These women 
recognize the power of mutual aid ; they ac- 
knowledge that employers are not individual 
tyrants, and that their only chance for a freer, 
happier life lies not in strikes, but in combina- 
tions, backed by a public sentiment in favor of 
equal wages for men and women. Then, the 
more intelligent daily see the hopelessness of 
any such attempt at union, on account of the 
intensity of the caste feeling among them ; the 
enjoyments and occupations of each class are 
distinct. 

One more generalization can be given, made 
by one who is doing all she can to elevate the 
character of her fellow- workers : " Caste is a 
nuisance to those who wish to get into what 
3'ou call ' societ}^,' and it is our curse. There 
are among us (i) the sensuous class, those 
who dance ; (2) the domestic class, who stay 
by themselves and get their own meals, or live 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 217 

with their parents in rooms, who work all day 
and sew all* night, and go to church on Sun- 
day, or remain at home without gadding 
about ; (3) then the God-forsaken class, who 
stay honestly in their attics and die by inches, 
who are not skilled workwomen by birth, and 
who never can be, any more than all can be 
artists, but who can do slopwork, and starve 
to death (Why don't the skilled pity the un- 
skilled, and look only to the slow process of 
better-boin generations to do away with the 
amount of unskilled labor?) ; and (4) there 
are the servants," and she shrugged her 
shoulders, as if mention of them were needless. 
The desire for combination, as the means of 
a general elevation, obtains among the more 
thoughtful portion of the women. It does not 
follow that because these women do not know 
much they therefore think little. Life experi- 
ence has made them rich in thought, and. the 
socialistic and free-thinking papers urge them 
on to clearer definition of their needs, often 



2l8 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

in a wrong direction. Many of them have 
attempted the formation of clubs and societies 
of their own, which have ahnost always failed, 
if for no other reason than because they have 
so little surplus time and strength for anything 
which is not daily bread. When entertain- 
ments have been provided for them the very 
fact that they were for them included a stigma. 
Friendly and social evenings have also been 
established for them here and there ; but only 
when even any suspicion of kindness has been 
omitted have they been successful. This un- 
willingness of the more intelligent and lady- 
like to associate with the less intelligent ren- 
ders it still more difficult for others to form any 
classes for their instruction or make social 
attempts for their enjoyment. The spirit of 
caste dominates them far more than people in 
society. Some will not come, fearing patron- 
age of the rich ; others, from dread of being 
ignored by those of a higher grade, who yet 
work for self-support. The Irish feel this in- 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 219 

cubus of caste far less than the Americans. 
Difference in station is an Old-Worlcl fact with 
which the Irish and their ancestors have long 
been familiar. Their church frowns on any 
combination for intellectual purposes which 
might disintegrate their religious faith, and the 
sodalities themselves supply avenues for social 
intercourse, with the added benefit of spiritual 
instruction. 

Among the Western women who are farmers, 
caste is founded on the aristocracy of energy ; 
she who makes the best butter, " raises" the 
finest hens, " steps round smartest," and cooks 
the biggest dinner for the largest number of 
farm hands, is the leader. At the harvest fes- 
tivals and the county fairs, the wives of the 
poor and of the rich farmer meet on the same 
social plane ; the one assuming and the other 
acknowledging the superiority born of deftness 
and strength. The hired girl is a neighbor's 
daughter, who will soon marry, have a farm, 
and be just the same as the woman for whom she 



220 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

is now working ; so there is no snubbing her. 
Whoever is the best cook and the earliest riser 
will have the means for a better dress, and in 
all meetings will be the equal of her stalwart 
husband, in his coarse, ready-made suit ; while 
the weak, inefficient woman stays at home, has 
no new dresses, and misses the stimulus of 
the Grange meetings and agricultural shows. 
Poor woman ! Children have multiplied, and 
the farm income has not kept pace with their 
growth. Yet she is the socially recognized 
equal of her better-to-do neighbor in all but 
energy. Caste is founded in the far West on 
its primal, lawful ground of ability, whether 
physical or mental. 

In other circles the demarcations of caste 
are felt more than they are seen, but the test 
of consciousness is more absolute than that of 
sight. It is, after all, a personal feeling, far 
more indefinable since the position of women 
has so widely changed. She is no longer 
merely the house-keeper, obedient wife, or 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 221 

needle-and-thread mother. Almost all have 
some interest outside their homes. Once only- 
Quaker women spoke in church. Now all 
churches recognize that the power of deposing 
a man from the pulpit, or of elevation to it, 
rests with the women ; they really rule the 
church. "Women have no business out- 
side of their homes," said a countryman. 
But his wife went to a prayer-meeting, and a 
neighbor reported that " she had made a 
feeling, eloquent prayer." The husband 

slightly winced. She went to a temperance 
gathering, and spoke fervently and pi- 
ously, and the men talked of Farmer B.'s 
wife; and Farmer B. "smartened up," got 
his wife a hired girl, and declared that " his 
wife wan't one of the show-off kind, but that 
she begun low down in a prayer-meeting and 
worked her way up." 

As this ability to manage outside affairs 
increases, women will have too little time to 
be patient with the limitations of caste, for 



222 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

they must choose their working comrades from 
those who possess personal power, though not 
station. Ah*eady has the "committee life" 
of women done much to break down society's 
barriers. "Oh, yes, I took the initiative!" 
said a fashionable woman, "and invited her 

first. I knew her on the Board of . 

Never heard of her before ; but she knows, 
and has style too ; she is a lady." The society 
leader recognized the words that really open 
wide all doors ; knowledge, manner, savoir 
yaire^ are imperative. Saints are charitable 
toward outward failings, but busy and gay 
people demand the passport of manner. 

Since women have acquired such complex 
duties or relations the varieties of society 
within a city's limits are queer. The super- 
abundance of women perhaps has necessitated 
the frequent reading of a poem or an essay, as 
an introduction to the later su2)per. The 
washerwoman has hex '"'• l)?'ic-a-brac coterie." 
The wife of a small store-keeper invites you to 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 223 

pass a pleasant, social evening at her residence, 
and ghastly poems are recited, and original 
songs, on crumpled paper drawn from waist- 
coat pockets, are sung. The wholesale mer- 
chant takes the retail trader to dinner at a 
hotel, not to his club or to his house. At a 
reception of" choice friends," loose, disjointed 
kid gloves encase long, lank fingers, which 
give lingering pressure on introduction, as a 
deep voice asks, "Where do you belong?" or, 
"What are you doing for society or the 
world?" or, "Have you a calling?" If one 
could be sure that annual revenues would 
never fail one would like to exclaim : "I do 
nothing, am nobody, and aspire to nothing ! 
I live on my estate." A widower says : 
" Since my wife's death I am endeavoring 
to maintain her social reunions. Will you 
come and read?" and you go, — and find the 
pictures near the ceiling. The height at which 
pictures are hung establishes, in the eyes of 
the social connoisseur, the society standing of 



224 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

their possessor. Money can buy color and 
frames ; inherited taste alone can hang them. 
All other signs may fail, but the height of a 
picture will ever be the true indicator of one's 
social position. Intellectual entertainment is 
no test of one's social standing ; the lowest and 
the highest are eager to offer this piece de 
resistance. It takes the place of supper, or 
whets the appetite for something substantial, 
and is as often the bane as the delight of an 
evening. People are no longer supposed to 
possess enough intelligence to talk for two 
hours at their own sweet will, but the topic 
must be assigned by the paper, essay, brochure. 
Even coffee-parties are intellectualized ; a 
kettle-drum, a ball, or a huge reception, re- 
mains as the only entertainment incapable of 
mental improvement. When every one can 
ofl'er original mental food who shall lead? 
The coterie in the side street is as large as that 
on the fashionable avenue. Within the course 
of a few days a lady went to four lunches, two 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 225 

kettle-drums, and two evening receptions, and 
did not meet the same person twice. The 
larger the city the more conspicuous is this 
variety of circles. Where is society ? At each 
door there were carriages, and each house was 
well appointed. Some would fold their nap- 
kins ; others would throw them crumpled on 
the table. Some would have wine, others 
water. In one house it was etiquette to re- 
move your bonnet ; in another, to wear it. 
Here " gents" were invited ; there, " some of 
our best society." In one the men carried 
opera hats, and wore white cravats, and bowed 
deeply ; in another, frock-coats and flat scarfs, 
and shook hands. All and each averred they 
knew how, and all and each secretly feared 
they didn't. 

The outcome of all this variety is that while 
there is caste there is no ruling force. The 
most exquisite kindliness and the freshest bon- 
mots are met with among people forever un- 
known to fame. Clever talk and story-telling 



226 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

are often most graphic among those who 
read little. Literary satire, analysis, and epi- 
grammatic wit abound among the more 
cultured ; and a quiet sympathy, restful man- 
ner, and keen, general intelligence, with a 
thorough knowledge of one's own specialty 
(where there is such), among the most cult- 
ured. It often requires moral courage to 
invite a friend to simply a flimily dinner, or 
to ask an acquaintance to meet an undistin- 
guished guest, to hear an unauthorized voice ; 
a social evening is burdened with a purpose, 
belittling sociability and rendering impossible 
the grace and freedom of the French salon. 
To many, a celebrity has a mercantile value, 
as increasing the number of those who will 
come to them ; the more noted the celebrity, 
the more are they "in society." Only let it 
be remembered, the grocer's wife, who lives 
over her husband's store, also issues invita- 
tions to meet some one who has written some- 
thing, or is going to do it ; and guests of as 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 22/ 

much real intelligence will be met with in the 
retail merchant's house as in that of the 
wholesale jobber. 

The timidity and ever-obtruding self-con- 
sciousness of people prevent them from con- 
stantly asking the same persons ; they are 
afraid lest it is fancied they like them. A sym- 
pathetic spirit in the host and real devotion 
to intelligent culture are the only means by 
which American society can approach the 
merits of the old salon. Subordination of 
one's self, interest in others' gifts, and will- 
ingness to speak of one's own if asked, will 
conquer caste and render society delightful. 
A friend's friends are generally the persons 
who consent neither to be amused nor to 
amuse others ; but they exist in every circle. 
Introductions are like courses at dinner, — we 
have hardly found of what one is composed 
before another dish or stranger is presented. 

There will always be worthy unknown 
people whom one ought to know in all ranks 



228 ABOUT PEOPLE, 

of American life. The clerk, on eight hun- 
dred a year, wonders that you have not read 
his brother's article in the last magazine ; the 
concocter of hair-oil in an obscure village sup- 
poses every one has heard of her contribution 
to society's physical welfare ; you take tea in 
a little room, and eat pickles, cheese, and 
bread with a lady and gentleman well known for 
their devotion to humanity (you never heard 
of them before, but that is your ignorance) ; you 
are invited to a reception for the president 
of (you were unaware of such an asso- 
ciation) ; you have pamphlets of real excellence 
sent you (the authors bore all the expenses 
of publication, so little were they appreciated) ; 
you meet with the wife of a representative to 
the General Court (you had never heard of 
her husband) ; cards come on uncanny paper, 
asking you to meet an artist or musician who 
exhibits his pictures or sings in some unknown 
hall or church vestry ; you meet with a noble 
author, and can hardly recall his books, or a 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 239 

great scientist or genius, and the conversation 
resembles that ot a French grammar. And so 
it goes. But all this is society^ and it is all 
fine and true, though with foibles that amuse, 
and little awkwardnesses that grate, and stiff- 
ness that chills. Every one is of importance 
in his own circle ; how important will be 
shown by his universality. 

Some English ladies, in lunching at the 
house of one of the best families, said that it 
was the first they had seen where manners 
were so simple that they dared to ask if they 
might see the laundry and the kitchen. Peo- 
ple are more shy than cold, and more self- 
conscious and self-deprecatory than shy ; they 
honestly do not think anyone can care to know 
them, or that they can give, in their own per- 
sonality, any pleasure. Why is it that, with caste 
in every direction, the best society, as such, 
does not exist? It is owing to wretched self- 
consciousness, ambitions, and want of calm 
self-respect, and it is the real excellence, the 



230 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

glory of American life, that there is no such 
unit as society ; while both the evil and the 
excellence are inherent in republicanism and 
our gratuitous public-school education. Theo- 
retically, all children are. educated in the 
public schools ; practically, business interests 
demand mutual assistance. Universal suffrage 
gives the same right to the clodhopper, author, 
or merchant. Any one may be where some 
one else is, for force of will and long-headed- 
ness conquer. This is what our Declaration 
of Independence stands for. Are our children 
to repeat, " All men are born free and equal," 
and then to court social superiority? 

The only position that has ever been ac- 
knowledged cheerfully by the American 
people has been the small circle of first-class 
historians, poets, and scientists. Prescott, 
Motley, Ticknor, Agassiz, Bryant, Longfel- 
low were — Parkman and Lowell still are — 
leaders of intellectual, social life, because each 
unites an exquisite kindliness and active sym- 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 231 

pathy for others' needs with his own attain- 
ments. There is also political society, of all 
degrees of honesty and grace, but towards 
even the purest statesmen there are varying 
degrees of personal animosity, kindled by dif- 
ference of opinion, which leave him a doubt- 
ful social empire. Certain families have 
always stood for certain ideas, and extended 
hospitalit}^ to those of the same faith. Money, 
position, or literary success is generally sup- 
posed to unbar the gates of caste ; but money 
does not do it for those of the first generation, 
though their children may be accepted. Posi- 
tion is of variable tenure, and small literary 
success is cheap. Force of character is worth 
a dozen magazine articles, and if the small 
number of our best intellectual men had been 
anything less than manly, simple, and true in 
their nature, American aggressiveness would 
never have honored them as social leaders. 
Character, not intellectual force, is what 
republicans worship ; but discontented aspir- 



232 ABOUT PEOPLE. 

ants are parasites on society, which adores 
literary mediocrity. 

Common-sense can never grant that only a 
few know what society means, though willing 
to confess that a few alone understand the 
laws of conventionality. Republican com- 
mon-sense cares to adapt the means to the 
end, and if it can have a jolly time in its own 
parlors, — if it can think and read and write 
papers and dance and sing, it is not going to 
be told that it is not — society. Each one is 
worth the whole of himself; it was thus 
with his ancestors, and will be so with his 
descendants ; every true democrat will create a 
little world around himself by virtue of his 
own being, whilst the old aristocrat will ap- 
peal to inheritance and land. When our 
presidents are often the unknown third man, 
brought from comparative obscurity to retire 
again into mellowed light ; when presidents' 
wives cannot banish wine from the tables nor 
frizzles from the brows of the women, — are 



CASTE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. 233 

Americans to talk of the ioowcr of society? 
The power of tact, of sympathy, of native 
force, of real intelligence, not of idle appre- 
ciation, is the only power that American 
individualism will ever consent to honor. 
Our high schools and the minimum examina- 
tions in colleges will make it more and 
more possible for cultured circles to exist on 
small incomes; a love for scholarship, en- 
joyment of great w^orks, and perception of 
the opportunities that the simplest forms of 
nature offer for original research, even to the 
child botanist, will make literary life less a 
sham, power and money less a god, until 
good manners and simplicity of thought and 
life are as universal possessions in our repub- 
lic as they are in our theories. Caste in its 
unkindest or most exclusive forms will grad- 
ually disappear in the reality of our living, 
though it may always remain as an undefined 
aroma from unknown distances. 

But society, — where is it? Everywhere. 




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